Which Doctor?
by avorialair
Summary: The Doctor has just regenerated. He's different, exciting, new. Rose isn't sure if she likes him, or if all she wants is her old Doctor back. So when he turns up at the door of the TARDIS while ... [rest of the summary inside]
1. A New Beginning

**_A/N_**_: I suddenly wondered what this idea would be like. I can't give too much away, obviously, but this idea has been bothering me and I wanted to see if a) it would be successful and b) if it would turn out interesting enough to make a good story. I'll let you know ;)  
_

_**Characters (so far)**: Rose Tyler, __The Doctor (Ninth), __The Doctor (Tenth) - You'll see what I mean about that  
_

_**Disclaimer**: I own none of these characters. And if I did, I could never come up with the fantastic storylines anyway, so it's probably just as well :P_

_**Summary**: The Doctor has just regenerated. He's different, exciting, new. Rose isn't sure if she likes him, or if all she wants is her old Doctor back. So when he turns up at the door of the TARDIS while she's holding - supposedly - his arm, what is she supposed to think?_

_**Story Rating**: T (But only in the later chapters. K and K+ for the earlier ones) _

_-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

Chapter I – A New Beginning

"Where was I? Oh yes. Barcelona!"

His big, cheesy grin spread right across the breadth of his face and didn't recede. His eyes were alive and bright with a new life, a new sparkle, and though he was obviously well aware of whom he was talking to, Rose hadn't he faintest idea who he was. Her lips were pursed together and her eyes were wide. Fear flickered apprehensively behind them, but it was mixed with confusion.

"Who... who are you?" she asked timidly, her body tense and very tightly together. She didn't dare to move. He looked different. Whoever 'he' was; black hair in a tangled mess, sticking up from his head; bright eyes; a wide smile; a faint trace of stubble. And he was tall.

He looked at her, frowning, as if she's just asked what two plus two equalled.

"I'm the Doctor," he said simply. Then he grinned again, the big grin, where every single one of his white teeth shone out at her. "C'mon Rose, you can't tell me you don't recognise me. You can do better than that!"

"But you're not... I mean... you look..."

He chuckled, a light, boyish chuckle; this certainly wasn't the man, the Doctor, Rose was used to.

"That's one of the things about regenerating," he said, almost smiling. "I can look like anyone. Anything. You're lucky I didn't end up with four arms and six eyes. Not," he added hastily, "that that's ever happened to me before."

His voice was light and soft, like low-fat creamy butter. He had a voice that you could tell just by listening to it was a charmer, though his accent was hard to place. Definitely English, but Rose had heard nothing quite like it before. It was like a mixture of regions.

"Where's the Doctor?" she asked, eyeing him suspiciously, though she was still wary.

"I told you," he replied. He looked hurt at her disbelief. "I _am_ the Doctor."

"You don't look like him."

He laughed at her simplicity. He supposed it must have been difficult to fathom, him in a new body. He was having trouble getting used to it himself. But then again, he always did.

He shook his head in an amused way, but didn't answer her.

The Doctor moved around the TARDIS feeling the levers and bolts with his hands, gliding carefully over them as if this were the first time he had seen it. He was almost caressing it, and this made Rose smile. She was watching him carefully, not quite sure what to think about him. Was this really the Doctor? He certainly seemed to have that certain... essence... about him. A complete disregard for the rules, perhaps.

She was tired and worn out – from the time vortex thingy, she supposed – and was still quite confused. She couldn't really remember much of what had happened. It was all such a haze. All she could remember, rather than events, were emotions. Overwhelming feelings and the sudden desire to end it all...

"Do you want to go home?"

The Doctor's voice had invaded her thoughts and she looked at him. His eyes and face were serious, his smile long gone. Rose frowned.

"I dunno," she shrugged honestly. "You're not who I thought you were."

The Doctor darted quickly around the controls towards her. He looked as if he were about to protest to what she'd said, but then seemed to change his mind.

"I am somewhere," he offered, as if this were an appropriate answer. "You got to know a part of me and now that part's gone. I may look different, act different and, well, _be_ different, I suppose. But I'm still the Doctor."

"Whatever that means."

He looked at her softly.

"What if I took you back to London?" he asked, turning away from her back towards the controls. "Your London? Then you could make your decision about what you want to do."

"What if I've already made it?"

He looked up. "Have you?"

Rose shrugged.

"I just wish things could go back to the way they were. Less complicated."

"You don't like the new me?"

"Well..." she avoided his eyes. "The way you were talking before you... changed. I thought you were gonna die. I thought that was it. The end. And now... there's this."

The Doctor had the nerve to grin, and Rose didn't like it.

"You know me. I love – or loved – a bit of drama. You should have seen the look on your face!"

"It wasn't funny!" Rose snapped. "That's twice I almost lost you. In the same day, at least." Her eyes were beginning to tear up, and the Doctor suddenly recognised at once that this was all too much for her. She wasn't ready for the change. She had known him, who he was before and – he suspected – loved him for it. At least in some way. Now all that was taken away from her. She wasn't ready for this, any of it. And he knew he had to make the decision about her return to London even if she couldn't.

"And I _don't_ know you," Rose was saying now. "Not anymore. I stood and watched you change. Regenerate. Whatever. But what am I s'posed to do now? Pretend I don't see the change? 'Cause I do, Doctor, and I don't think I like it."

The Doctor let out a sigh that took his broad shoulders down with it. He had suspected something like this, he remembered now.

"You're right," he conceded eventually, looking her directly in the eye. "I have changed. But I'm still alive. You have to get to know me again, okay, I admit. But so do I."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm different now. I may remember things, yes, like who I am and what I'm supposed to do and that I help people. But who do I help now? How do I help them? I don't know how I'm supposed to do it any more than you do. Everything inside me's changed and it's a bit like test-driving a car to find out how it all works. Only, this car drives itself. And I don't know where it's going."

"You're not making sense," Rose said bluntly. He laughed again, at himself this time. Despite herself, Rose quite liked his laugh. It was real and heart-felt.

"I guess I'm not good with words anymore," he reasoned, smiling.

"Like you were before?" Rose teased.

"Oi, watch it." But he was still smiling. "But I'm clever, though. Two-thousand-and-sixty-one times one-hundred-and-forty-seven?"

"Uh..." Rose fumbled, not unjustly.

"Three-hundred-and-two-thousand-nine-hundred-and-sixty-seven," he said, with a definite air of triumph. "See? Clever!"

"There's more to life than numbers, Doctor," Rose said as he began to loose interest and wandered back to the controls of the TARDIS again. He reached down and began to fiddle with a couple of levers, and thus didn't look up when he answered.

"Actually, not much more. The Universe is based on thousands and thousands of numbers and calculations. One big, massive, unbreakable, unsolvable code." He paused momentarily. Then he looked up. "Hey, aren't I a fountain of knowledge? Wonder what I look like, though."

This Doctor was quirky, Rose thought. Unpredictable. And easily bored. Already he was wandering away into the back of the TARDIS to, as it turned out, look for a mirror. He returned, holding one of Rose's compacts in his hand and starting to open it.

"Hey!" she protested. He looked up, only a little guilt written on his face. Rose had the uneasy feeling that had she been anyone else, he wouldn't have even bothered with that.

"Sorry," he said, though he did not put the mirror down. "I guess I'm rude, too."

"Evidently," Rose said bitterly. She began walking over to him to reclaim the mirror – it was, after all, a matter of principle. But several things happened at once to stop her from doing so. First, the Doctor lurched forward, as if the TARDIS had just undergone a massive earthquake. He collapsed to the floor on all fours, panting, and concentrating very hard on not passing out. His stomach felt as though it wanted to explode. Rose, forgetting all about the mirror, cried out in shock.

"I'm – okay – " he panted, though his voice was weak. "I'm – still – regenerating."

"What does that mean?" Rose asked worriedly, crouching next to him. He couldn't even look up at her.

"I'm weakening." He began to stand up, helped by Rose. "Until I rest. It can't complete unless I let it."

The second thing that happened was that the door of the TARDIS crashed open, very loudly. The enormous sound startled Rose, and she jumped again. But she was more surprised at who stood in the doorway, his face as dark and black as thunder. His eyes were both cold and alive with – was that... hate? He was panting hard, as if he'd been running, and both his arms were out, on each side of the frame. She gasped and let go of the Doctor, who stumbled a little. She couldn't take her eyes off the all-too-familiar man in the doorframe. It wasn't possible. It didn't make sense. It couldn't be him.

"Rose," said the Ninth Doctor slowly. "Get away from him. He isn't the Doctor."


	2. Doctor Invasion

_**A/N:** Now might be a good time to say that I only began to watch this series when it was the Ninth Doctor, 2005. I haven't seen any of the earlier episodes, even though I wish I had. Because of this, I apologise if my facts are iffy - I'm really not sure how reliable wikipedia is xD And anyway, all I wanted to do was write the story anyway. And another thing, so no one gets confused, once I start referring to the two doctors as 'first' and 'second', first is the ninth and second is the tenth. It just worked better that way :D_

_-------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

Chapter II – A Doctor Invasion

He stood in the doorway of the TARDIS, his mind a raging battlefield of confusion and anger. For once, he didn't know what was going on. Or how to fix it. All he knew was that he wanted that... whoever he was... out of the TARDIS and _away_ from Rose.

The Doctor could see by her expression that she was just as confused as he was. She hadn't moved; her eyes were fixed on him, widening. But the man beside her had stood to his full height and, rather like an annoyed mother, put his hands on his hips.

"I'll have you know, I _am_ the Doctor, thank you very much," he said. His voice was weary when he said it, as if he'd said it quite a few times before. "Why, who are you? Shapeshifter? Metamorphosiser?" He grinned suddenly. "Obsessed clone? You know, I've always wanted to meet one of those."

"Get out of the TARDIS," The Doctor ordered, advancing forward. The anger he felt beating through his body churned in his eyes. His voice was malevolent. Rose had never seen him like this.

"I think you mean _my _TARDIS," his opposer replied cheerfully. "Though I can see why you'd want her. Pretty, isn't she?"

Rose still hadn't moved. She couldn't take her eyes off the fast-advancing man. Was he the Doctor? Was it even possible? He had the same passion and fury. And he was familiar. It was nice, safe.

The new Doctor suddenly nudged her in the ribs. He whispered quietly, with an air of amusement, "Look at this guy! What d'you think? Fanatic gone too far?" He was grinning. Again. Perhaps he was so cheerful because he had everything under control. Perhaps he knew exactly what was going on and exactly what to do next. Or perhaps he didn't.

"Rose," the Doctor said softly, now only a few feet from the pair. He was looking right at her, his amazing blue eyes shining out with all the wonder of the universe. There were no more words he could say so instead he extended his arm with his palm out. She glanced at it, and then at him. His eyes were pleading. And then, she slipped her own hand into his. He smiled, subtly, and then pulled her comfortably to his side. She was safe.

His impostor suddenly sprang in to action. His face became hard and lacked emotion. The colour drained from his face. Only his eyes, his soft, deep brown eyes, betrayed how he was really feeling. His body tensed. Every muscle was attuned to two things: defending the TARDIS and saving Rose. He looked directly at the intruder.

"What do you want?" His voice was cold, yet passionate at the same time. "I'll give you what you want if you'll just let Rose go."

Rose was surprised by this, and her grip on the Doctor's hand loosened. He felt it, and his stomach lurched, as if he was just going over the top of a roller coaster. He released her hand himself, and stepped forward until he was only a few inches from the man. He was taller than the Doctor, but the Doctor didn't care. Not one teeny, tiny bit.

"I'll tell you what I want," he spat, his eyes blazing with fury. "I want you to pack up your things and go. I want you to go back to whatever poor excuse for planet you came from and stay there. I want you to leave Rose alone, and the TARDIS, and this planet and I never ever want to see you again!"

His voice had been rising throughout this, until by the end, he was shouting. His opposer, he saw with a certain satisfaction, looked slightly taken aback. But then he looked over – yes, over the top of – the Doctor's head straight at Rose. She was still watching them, her mouth and throat too dry to talk. So much had happened in such a short space of time – though, she was beginning to realise time had no meaning when you were with the Doctor – that her head was swimming. She was still suffering from the effects of the Time Vortex.

"Well Rose," The new Doctor said, his chipper voice returned. "What do you think about that?"

At this, the first Doctor turned to look at her. Under other circumstances, it might have been funny, the two of them, so different by contrast, each relying on her for an answer. But all it did now was give her a headache.

"What... the hell... is going on?" she asked, putting a hand to her head to try and stop the pain. She blinked slowly. Then she looked at each of them. "Who are you?"

"The Doctor."

But it was two voices that rose into the air in a simultaneous answer, which led each of them to turn and glare at each other.

"You can't both be the Doctor," Rose said reasonably.

"No," agreed the First, not taking his eyes from the Second.

"Which means one of us is lying," replied the Second simply. "But the question is," he looked at Rose. "Which one?"

"This is... too weird for words," Rose sighed, shaking her head. Then she wish she hadn't, because her head throbbed more violently and she began to feel a little dizzy because of it. "Isn't there a way to test it, or something? Like for the TARDIS to recognise the real Doctor?"

"I never thought of installing something into the TARDIS," the first Doctor said, finally turning around to look at her. "I didn't think I'd need it."

"But if you didn't think you'd need it," the Second piped up, "Then obviously you _did_ think about it, but decided against it. Which means that you were lying just then, which means you're lying right now, which proves that I am, in fact, the Doctor and you can get out of here and go back to whatever it is you were doing before. Gosh," he looked at Rose again, "awful chatterbox, aren't I? That's new."

The first Doctor looked at Rose incredulously and folded his arms. "Where on earth did you find this bloke? He's crazier than you."

"Coming from someone who is making a rather appalling attempt at being me, that's hardly very compelling." The second Doctor countered. He then looked the First up and down. "Or rather, the old me. You haven't actually explained who you really are yet, by the way. I'd rather like to know – "

"Look, pretty boy, shut it, okay?" The first Doctor was looking at Rose intently and didn't bother with a glance behind him. Her expression was concentrated but clouding over. Her eyes were blinking slowly. She was swaying slightly on the spot. And then, with no warning, she fell gracefully to the floor.

"Rose!"

The call was echoed as the both of them cried out at the same time, a different sort of worry in each of their voices. It was uncanny. They both rushed to her side – well, one to each side – and gazed down at the collapsed figure. The first Doctor knelt over her whilst the second removed his jacket, folded it, and slipped it under Rose's head. He slid his hand behind her head and looked at her, worry etched in his face.

"She must be suffering from the Time Vortex," he said quietly. Rose's body began to stir. "I told you no-one was supposed to absorb it, you daft thing," he said tenderly, smiling as her eyes flickered open.

"Actually, _I_ said that," corrected the First, matter-of-factly. "Only without the – " he mimicked the second's accent, " 'daft thing'. If you're going to try and be me, the least you can do is get your facts right."

"God," choked Rose as she sat up on her elbows. She felt woozy and sick, and could barely keep her eyes open. "Would you two just shut up?"

The Doctors – as they seemed to be – exchanged a glance, then both looked down to her.

"Are you all right?" the First asked, putting a hand on her arm.

This was quickly followed by the Second's, "'Course she's not all right. She's just fainted, hasn't she?"

"I meant _now_," The First replied, shooting a glare to the Second. Then he looked back down to Rose again, holding her eye contact. "He's an idiot. Come on, let's get you up."

With the help of one, or perhaps both of them – Rose wasn't quite sure, it was difficult to tell – she stood to her feet. Her insides felt as if they were all trying to move around and get to different parts of her body. Her head ached with a severity that she felt would kill her, and even standing up alone took an immense amount of concentration.

"Do you want to sit down?" the first Doctor asked her, looking at her intently.

"Or a drink of water?" the second Doctor added, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You're probably dehydrated."

"I wanna go home," she cried, her head swimming with dizziness again. She was barely even conscious that she'd said anything. All she knew was that feeling like she did, all she wanted was her Mum by her side. She didn't _really_ want to go home. Later, when she thought about it, all she wanted to do was fall asleep. But it was her first reaction.

Both of the men rushed up to the controls of the TARDIS at once.

"Home it is, then," the Second said brightly, reaching for the controls. "London... 2005, wasn't it?"

"Only _I_ can drive the TARDIS," the First said at once, on the other side of the controls. "The Doctor." 

"Oh yeah?" said the Second as he pulled a lever down. The TARDIS began to whirr and click as it kicked into action. He was proud as he spoke. "Then how come it's working?"

Rose had managed to stumble to the edge of the TARDIS, and sat down on a couch. She put her head in her hands, running her fingers back into her hair. As well as the pain in her head, there were also questions. Hundreds and hundreds of them, all that she couldn't answer. Were there really two of them? What if there weren't? Who was the real one? Who – or _what_ – was the other? What would happen to them now? How could this all have happened?

Her eyes were closed, but she was suddenly aware of someone else sitting next to her on the couch. She opened her eyes, as much as she didn't want to, and looked over to find the first Doctor sitting next to her.

"What?" she asked grumpily. Now wasn't the time for his questioning looks.

"I just want to help, Rose," he said quietly. He reached into the depths of his jacket and revealed the sonic screwdriver.

"Hey, I have one of those! You've really taken this 'clone' thing far, haven't you?" The Second said brightly from the controls. The First ignored him.

"What you gonna do with that?" Rose half-laughed. "Melt my headache away?"

"The screwdriver doesn't 'melt'," he said as he switched it on and held it up to her head. He sat back and looked at her. "But yeah, I guess I am."

She looked at him for a moment, confused. But then suddenly, the pain, the dizziness and the questions all seemed to fall away from her. It was like she was rising above it all, and suddenly she could think more clearly than she had ever done in her life. It was amazing.

"Wow," she said, more to herself. She looked away at the floor.

"Yeah," the Doctor said, grinning, returning the screwdriver to his pocket. "Handy little device, this. Good for all sorts of knocks and bumps. You feeling better?"

She didn't have a chance to reply. The TARDIS suddenly gave a small bump and the second Doctor approached them, smiling.

"We're here," he said.

"Where?" Rose asked groggily. He frowned a little.

"London."

"Oh..." she faltered. Now that she could think clearly, she wasn't sure if she could deal with her Mum and Mickey and her old life. Not right now. She sat back into the cough, and rested her head against the wall of the TARDIS. This was all too much.

"I thought you wanted to... go home."

There was something about the way the second Doctor said it that made Rose lift her head. Had he really thought she'd wanted to go home for good?

"No," she said definitely. She then glanced from the Doctor beside her to the Doctor standing over her. This was confusing. "I want to get to the bottom of this."

"You and us all," the First agreed.

"Yes. I think – "

But just what the second Doctor thought, they never found out. He suddenly closed his eyes and collapsed forward onto the sofa, in one swift moment, his eyes closed. His chest rose and fell with his breathing, but other than that there were no signs of life. Rose looked at him as if he were blue and covered with purple spots. The Doctor, however, sighed irritably.

"Not you as well," he muttered. "Whoever this guy is, he's not very good at it."

Rose looked at him. Her clear mind was letting her think, letting her put more than just two and two together.

"He said before... when you arrived... that he needed to rest. For the regenerate thing. For it to complete. I think."

The Doctor laughed, a cold, short laugh.

"This lad's really done his homework. He's clever. After Time Lords regenerate, we go through certain... experiences... to deal with it. It's not usually controllable. Convenient that apparently he gets to sleep for fifteen hours."

He cast him a dark look. "He has no idea," he almost sang.

"No idea about what, Doctor?"

His eyes shifted quickly to Rose.

"Oh, so you believe I'm the Doctor now, do you?"

She frowned, hurt, and shifted in her seat. She was sandwiched between them both, even though one was unconscious.

"I'm sorry," The Doctor said before she could say anything. He shook his head, and looked away. "That wasn't fair."

Silence began to grow between them. Rose wanted to get up and walk about, but everything in her body told her sit and rest herself. It was strange; the Doctor usually had the answer to all of her questions. But this was too deep, even for him it would seem. She looked apprehensively at the sleeping figure beside her.

"Do you really think he is... y'know?" she wondered aloud, letting her eyes glide over him. He was peaceful when he was asleep. She knew that it was the Doctor, the one she was used to, sitting next to her on the couch. But there was something else about this second man. She'd stood and seen him change. It had to be him. So why were there supposedly two of them?

"I don't know," the first Doctor admitted quietly. He, too, was looking at the result of the regeneration. "Normally I'd say no. But he knows things. I can see it in his eyes. Maybe something happened when the Time Vortex was in me. Who knows? Time is a fickle thing."

"What do you mean 'something'?"

The Doctor shrugged and stood up. He wandered around the TARDIS, but Rose could tell he was just trying to buy time while he thought.

"I feel like I know him," he said at last, turning to her.

"I thought you didn't like him."

"I don't. But that doesn't mean I don't know him from... somewhere. Maybe we've met before."

The second Doctor gave a little snore, as if to disagree, and Rose giggled.

"He's funny," she said distantly, watching him. His mouth was closed and his face was serene. She heard footsteps behind her as the first Doctor paced.

"Funny 'ha ha' or funny weirdo?"

Rose shrugged. "Bit of both, I think. I like it."

The Doctor stopped.

"I'm funny!" he said, almost incredulously. "You can't go favouring him over me just because he's 'funny'."

Rose laughed, and looked at him.

"What's the matter Doctor?" she asked innocently, her eyes shining. "Jealous?"

He shook his head and turned his attention towards the controls of the TARDIS; but that was simply because he didn't have anywhere else to look. He couldn't let her know that he _was_ actually jealous. Mostly because he could hardly believe it himself. Rose was special, he knew that; and he didn't want anyone else coming in to see it.

Rose blinked suddenly as a memory slammed its way back in to her mind. She was going to have to get used to the blur from the Time Vortex.

"I remember something," she said, her eyes focused on the floor.

"What about?" Came the Doctor's reply. He wasn't looking at her. But she looked up, very suddenly at him, and she couldn't hide the smile that was forcing its way into the corners of her mouth. It was part amusement, part happiness.

"You kissed me."

"What?" The Doctor said, but she could see that his cheeks had gained a tint of red. She stood up and wandered over to him.

"When I had that Time thingy."

He smiled.

"It was the only way to save you," he offered simply, though his smile didn't recede. "You said you wanted me safe. But I knew you couldn't handle it. I had to take the Vortex from you, otherwise it would have killed you."

She had walked over to him, and was close enough to put her hand on his. He stopped, and looked to her.

"Thank you, Doctor," she said softly. Everything about her face was pure, sincere. He laughed.

"A lot of good it did me," he nodded towards the figure on the couch. "If he really _is_ who he says he is... then that's my regeneration. He's me."

Rose looked at him, confused, but not entirely surprised.

"How'd you figure that?"

The Doctor sighed, and moved his hand away from Rose's as he walked away from her.

"Time's a funny thing, you know," he replied, staring down at the couch. His back was towards her, so Rose couldn't see the expression on his face. "I remember that I absorbed the Time Vortex after you saved the world. You collapsed in my arms. But after that..."

He trailed off. And then he turned back to Rose. She was surprised to see that his eyes were – not exactly 'wet' with tears, but there was emotion brewing in them like she'd never seen before. She was touched. But she let him continue uninterrupted.

"I don't remember. The next thing I know, I'm waking up on the floor outside of the TARDIS on Satellite Five. As if it had all been a strange dream. But then I heard voices, your voice, coming from inside the TARDIS and that meant that something had happened. Something bad. You called him 'Doctor'."

She could see the shock in his eyes at saying this, and for some reason, Rose's heart was hit with guilt. She felt ashamed, as if she had betrayed him and let him down.

"What are you getting at?" she pushed on, pretending that she felt nothing.

"I'm getting at that it's entirely possible time had a blip. A hiccup."

"Meaning?"

He looked straight at her and his answer was clear.

"We are the same person. The Doctor. Only, _I_ haven't regenerated. So now there's two of us. The trouble is, there can't be a duplicate of the same Time Lord. Can you imagine what that would do to the fabric of time? Two manipulators, two controllers, two helpers. Two Doctors, Rose. But one TARDIS."

Rose walked towards him. She had no idea what this all meant, but as if he read her mind, he answered her question.

"It means, Rose, one of two things: either the fabric of Time and Space will fall apart around us and the universe will end. Or one of us has to die to save it."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Just a last note - thank you_**so**_ much to the wonderful reviews on that last chapter! I had no idea until I had uploaded this chapter. Your words have spurred me on to keep on writing. Thank you :) And, I love hearing reviews, so if you have something to say, don't hesitate to click that little lilac button for me!_


	3. Plain and Simple

_**A/N:** Just a few notes. A thank you to all the wonderful reviews; you've really made my day, and it makes me want to keep writing. I'll admit, it is rather confusing: but then, the Doctor's world generally is, isn't it? Hope this is enough to satisfy :)  
_

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter III – Plain and Simple

"God, why's it always come down to death with you?"

Rose's voice echoed loudly around the TARDIS. It was no secret that she was upset. Which was ridiculous, really, as she hadn't known the new Doctor for very long. A matter of minutes, if that. But she liked him, and death always seemed so unnecessary.

"Circle of life, Rose," the Doctor answered simply. He was now making his own work of the controls, planning to take them away from London. Now wasn't the time. He needed somewhere they could all sit and talk, when pretty-boy woke up. Though, he thought painfully as the TARDIS began to fire up, he should probably stop thinking so viciously against him. After all, it was himself. Sort of.

"But... you said Time Lords can cheat death."

"They can."

"Then... why can't you two? And where are we going?"

He looked up. His face was plain, almost smiling.

"It's not the fact there's two Time Lords. Think about it in these sorts of terms: imagine we went back into your past, where you were a little child. Imagine if we took the younger you and the _you_ you away, and started our own little piece of history. What then? I don't think it ends with happy, smiling dancing little girls, Rose."

"But..." Rose cast a look back at the sofa, where the second Doctor was still asleep. "You're different people."

"No. We look different. But we're the same."

After his fleeting second of attention, he had returned his concentration from the TARDIS. She may as well have been talking to a wall.

"You don't have to be so mean about it," she sulked. "All I'm asking is for another way."

"You don't even know him!" This was a sort of amused cry rather than a cry of outrage.

"Who says he's the one that has to... y'know...?"

The first Doctor still didn't look up.

"Because it's my TARDIS and I make the rules."

Rose mumbled something incoherent, and it made her turn away and sit next to the Doctor on the couch.

"What was that?" the First called out to her.

"I said it's his TARDIS too. You can't just decide to... kill someone. And I thought Time Lords couldn't die anyway."

There was a clatter and a tool fell to the floor. Rose looked up and was surprised to see the Doctor with his head down, arms resting on the controls.

"Doctor?"

She stood up and made her way to his side. He didn't look up when he spoke, even though her hand comforted his back slowly.

"Time Lords can die. I never told you they couldn't. In fact, you know they can." His voice was strained and suddenly very, very tired. "They die with all the pain and despair of their previous regenerations. They're gone, wiped from existence. Wiped from the memory of time, from the universe itself. And I'm the only one left, the only one who can deal with that. Not you, and certainly not him over there."

Rose lowered her face next to his, even though his arm was in the way.

"Are you all right?" she asked softly, more with wonder than worry. He shook his body, and Rose's hand fell away. Then he straightened up, sniffed, and gave her a smile.

"I'm fine. I've programmed a random course for the TARDIS," he said unemotionally. "It'll find somewhere deserted where we can – "

"You're not going to just _leave_ him?" Rose cried, shocked, and looking back to the second Doctor. He looked at her sternly.

"Talk," he finished. The relief was clear on Rose's face. But it didn't stay for long. A strangled intake of breath came from the sofa, and she looked around. The second Doctor was drenched with sweat, and his eyes were shut tight as if he were having a nightmare. His entire body was shaking. Whatever was happening to him certainly can't have been doing him any good.

"Doctor!" she cried, rushing over to the second Doctor. She crouched next to the sofa and felt his forehead with her hand. His temperature was through the roof.

Unsure as to whom she was talking, the first Doctor turned away. He couldn't understand how she could be so attached to someone she didn't even know.

"He's burning up!" she cried. Her voice was strained.

"Shouldn't have been so stupid as to fall asleep, then, should he?" he said, almost laughing. He didn't know what told him to say that, or why he was reacting that way. But he didn't like him, and that was that.

Rose was muttering something about being useless before she really spoke to him again.

"What about your sonic screwdriver?"

"You think I'm wasting my screwdriver on him?" the Doctor mocked. Rose gave him a withering look. He was acting as immature as a four year old. But then again, he always had. "He can heal himself if he wants to. I'm not stopping him."

"You're not helping much, though."

"Not my problem."

Rose let out a cry of despair and anger, and stood up. She swung around to the first Doctor, her eyes ablaze with irritation. "I swear, if you start jumping around singing, 'La la I can't hear you', I am going to _kill_ you!"

"Oh good," he said brightly, breaking into a grin. "Then I won't have to worry about how to solve our little duplicate problem, will I?"

Rose shook her head and literally bit her tongue. Somehow, swearing in front of an unconscious man seemed wrong. Especially as she would, technically, be insulting him. Thinking about it made her thoughts collide with one another in a confused lump, so she stopped trying. Instead, she remembered that the second Doctor had said that he had had a screwdriver as well... maybe there was one his jacket.

"Screwdriver," Rose said out loud as she picked the jacket up off the floor and began to search the contents. "Screwdriver, screwdriver..."

In the depth of one of the inside pockets, a hidden one sewn carefully in to the material, her hand tightened around something that felt like paper. She frowned, and though felt slightly guilty, pulled it out of the pocket.

The paper was card-like, but less stiff. It was textured and beige rather than the type of paper you put into a printer. It was folded over, but on one side, in large, beautiful curly letters, was written '_Rose_'. The paper was somewhat crinkled, but she began to open it and smooth it out at the same time. She shouldn't feel guilty. It was, after all, for her. Wasn't it?

As she opened the paper out, she noted the peculiar but beautiful patterns that were punched in to the paper. She had never seen anything like it before. The writing was not difficult to read, but she wanted to look at the paper, first, rather than the writing. As if to savour it.

But carefully, she turned it over one last time, and read.

_Dearest Rose. No, not dearest. That doesn't sound right. _

_Sweet Rose? Beautiful Rose? No, too corny. You'd never read any further and would probably jump out of the TARDIS. Not that I'd blame you. _

_I can't believe how much has gone on between us... No, definitely not, that's not right either. _

_We've been friends now for, oh, I don't know how long: probably a few months? Earth-wise, that is. (Anyway, seems longer to me)._

It seemed to be a first draft. The rest of the letter was mostly unreadable, scribbled out and re-written and blotched with the black ink. But written near the bottom in tiny letters, more as a sort of self-memo than a letter, was the message.

_Oh forget it. Look, Rose, I love you. Plain and Simple._

And that was it. That was all it said, in small letters. She probably would have missed it if she hadn't have been looking so closely. She let out a muffled cry as tears came to her eyes. She wasn't sure what to think. She could barely breathe. She kept a tight hold of the letter and stared at it. She felt like laughing and crying at the same time. Her surroundings seemed to blur around her; but that might have been the tears in her eyes.

She was suddenly aware of a presence at her side. The Doctor stood, and exhaled loudly. She jumped and got to her feet, momentarily forgetting all about the sonic screwdriver.

"What's that?" he asked, looking at the letter. But something told her he already knew.

"You don't know?"

He looked at her as if she'd just spontaneously turned into a rhino.

"I wouldn't ask if I knew, would I?"

Maybe, but he certainly seemed suddenly very interested.

"It's a letter," she said bluntly. His eyebrows rose. "I found it in your – his – jacket," she explained.

Was it just her, or did the Doctor shuffle nervously on his feet?

"Well, I hope it was a good read," he said. Then he suddenly turned and walked away, as if that were the end of the conversation.

"Doctor?" Rose asked, a little worried at his reaction.

"Hm?"

"Thanks. It was beautiful."

He looked at her, his eyes confused.

"What was beautiful?"

She held the letter up.

"Oh," he said flatly, his shoulders shrugging. "Then you might want to tell him so when he wakes up."

A lump appeared in her throat, and it was her turn to frown. She looked back at the slightly scruffy man on the couch.

"You mean... you didn't...?" She indicated to the letter again.

"Not me," he said, shaking his head. And then he turned back to the TARDIS controls and pulled a lever. That was that, he thought as it sprang alive again. Her reaction. It wasn't bad, he thought. Not really. But he'd never again be so stupid as to leave letters lying around.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was dark. That was his first impression. Very dark. But then, perhaps that was because his eyes were closed. Very slowly, the Doctor opened his eyes. The eerie blue light of the TARDIS flooded his vision, but it comforted him nonetheless. He felt weak. There was sweat at the back of his neck and on his forehead, and he'd fallen into an awkward position on the sofa. He blinked slowly, screwing up his eyes, then ran his tongue through his mouth. Still different. He coughed, if only to make sure his breathing passage was still clear.

"Wakey-wakey sleepy head," sang a familiar voice. It was mocking, and he groaned. Apparently, it had not been a dream. He began to sit up, shaking away the awkward feeling of too much sleep.

"Haven't you given up yet?" he asked, already feeling a little better. No matter how many times he did it, he would never be able to get used to this regenerating thing. It was always so different.

"On what?"

"On pretending to be me." He stood. Uneasily, albeit, but at least he was up. Rose appeared from nowhere, though he assumed she had come out of one of the back rooms of the TARDIS.

"He's not pretending," she said softly, and put a hand on his arm. "And you need to sit down."

He obeyed, and she sat next to him. She had in her hand a cold, damp cloth, and when she put it to his forehead he felt soothed immediately. He almost closed his eyes. But he kept his eyes on her.

"Don't tell me you believe him," he groaned. His voice was a little choked. "He could be dangerous." Then, after a pause, "I'm sorry. I can't believe I collapsed. Can you forgive me?"

Rose was looking almost through him rather than at him, so her answer was distant. "'Course. But you've been out for a few hours now and he hasn't tried to hurt me. We've... talked."

"A few hours?"

Rose nodded.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I shouldn't have – I was regenerating."

"I know. He explained."

"Oh he did, did he?" The second Doctor leaned forward to look for the First. "Where is he? He'd better not have touched the TARDIS."

Rose laughed. Always so protective.

"He said something about a time blip, and that the vortex created a sort of... alternate reality, almost. But a mixed one. So now there's two of you, Doctor, at different stages of regeneration."

"Hrm," the second Doctor said, his eyes brightening. He stuck a tongue in his cheek as he thought. Then suddenly, without warning, he stood up. "Interesting." He chewed his tongue, and then swung around to Rose on the couch. He pulled her up by her hands and looked directly at her eyes. "But you believe that I'm the Doctor, right?" he asked. His voice wasn't urgent or pressing; he was just curious.

"I kinda have to, don't I?" she asked, stepping slightly away from him. "You two have that same goofy look in your eye."

He frowned, but she could tell that underneath his furrowed brow he was amused.

"Goofy? Don't tell me I'm goofy this time around. I'm not sure if I could live with myself."

"You've always been a little goofy, Doctor," Rose laughed, shaking her head as she did so. Her blonde hair fell around her shoulders as she did so, framing her face perfectly. The second Doctor smiled, though he was not exactly sure why.

"Saved our lives, though," he said cheerfully. Their eyes met. "The goofiness, I mean."

Rose laughed again. It was a real giggle, a schoolgirl laugh, and he liked it. It was a laugh that he knew only he could make her do.

"I see he's fully awake, then."

Oh yes, and him. Rose turned to look at the first Doctor, who had appeared from behind the controls. His voice was flat and without emotion. Then he started walking towards the door of the TARDIS. Slowly, he opened it, popped his head out, pulled it back in, and then shut the door again.

"We can talk here, for now."

But no one seemed to want to start the talking. There was so much and yet so little hanging in the air.

"Er... maybe we should sit..." Rose said slowly, backing away to the sofa and doing so herself. The First followed suit, but not before glancing at the Second. His mouth tightened.

"Come on then, pretty-boy," he said coldly. "Time to talk."

The second Doctor's face broke into the biggest grin Rose had ever seen; bigger than the one he'd shown when they had first met. His eyes began to shine.

"Awww, I'm pretty?" he asked ecstatically, before taking a seat on the other side of Rose.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outside, on the dusty, old, deserted planet, something watched as the strange blue box appeared from nowhere. Its mechanical crunching sound echoed around the Blue Desert as it materialised. The something watched as the light on top flashed once, twice, three times and then no more. It didn't know what it was. But it knew it was dangerous. Instantly, it began to burrow deep down into the centre of the planet to its superiors. The coming danger was here.


	4. The Answer to Everything

_**A/N**: An extra long chapter because I may not be able to write much over the next few days. Again, a wonderful thank you to the reviewers, especially those who have obviously been following the story through and commenting, like **MontyPythonFan**, **past&pending** and **Logan's Lover**. Your words have not gone without notice :) As a side note, I would just like to add that I typed the best part of this chapter up on WordPad, so I apologise for spelling errors that may occure (the darn thing doesn't have spell check). I have also changed the story's rating from K to K+ as there is some minor swearing._

_Aside from that,** enjoy**!_

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter IV - The Answer to Everything

Despite the suggestion that they should 'sit and talk' about everything, it had been a good half an hour of almost complete silence. There were mumbles of how people were (fine) and an agreement that yes, probably, the two were both different stages of the Doctor. As confusing as _that_ had been. But no more had been said, and now silence was beginning to settle over the TARDIS like snow in winter. This was, of course, shortly broken by the second Doctor, who suddenly leapt up off the couch as if it had been on fire.

"I can't talk!" he complained, letting his arms fall to his side. "I get up, I do things, I explore. Come _on_, I want to test out the new me. I don't want to sit around doing nothing. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for a good natter. But not when there're things to do!"

"Don't look at me," the first Doctor shrugged, his hands raised in the air in mock surrender. "It was Rose's idea."

"It was not!" she cried loudly, glaring at him next to her on the sofa. "And you know it."

"Hey, if the shoe fits..." he replied back, with a small shrug.

"Argh, Doctor..." Rose groaned, annoyance tainting her voice. She made to put her head in her hands. He was always so... so... _frustrating_.

"Yes, Rose?" said the Second simply, with a cheek to his tone. He caught the eye of the First and they both grinned cheekily. Rose looked up from one to the other and groaned loudly.

"You're as bad as each other," she complained.

"Of course," the First sang brightly, getting up from the sofa. "One and the same."

"The same charm," the Second agreed.

"And wit," added the first.

"Knowledge."

"Grace."

"Manners."

"Modesty."

"Humour."

"Oh, you've _got_ to be kidding me," Rose interrupted; but her voice was not without a little amusement. She smiled. At least the two seemed to be getting along, which had to be better than the arguing. Maybe neither of them had to die after all. Though why she connected the two things together like that, Rose didn't know.

"Excuse me a minute," the second Doctor said suddenly. He walked away in to one of the back rooms of the TARDIS, and ignored the First Doctor cry out after him.

"You'd better not break my ship!" But he was grinning, too. Then, more quietly to Rose, "Where d'you think he's gone?"

Rose gave no answer. There was nothing she could say that wouldn't sound rude, so she kept her mouth shut. The first Doctor hovered around her, bouncing on the balls of his feet like an impatient child. But five minutes later, the second Doctor returned - In the most ridiculous clothes Rose had ever seen.

"Doctor!" she exclaimed with amazement, her eyes widening as she saw him. She stood up. She had never quite imagined him for the black, cotton trouser long, brown tweed-elbowed jacket, neat-yet-scruffy-shirt sort of look. It surprisingly suited him.

"Ah, I did wonder," said the First, looking at him sceptically.

"Like it?" the Second grinned back, but he was looking at Rose.

"Never thought I'd say this, but... yeah..."

He winked. "Always had a good taste for what suits, y'know."

"So, where to now? Now that talking's off the table." the First said, changing the subject. He began to circle the TARDIS, looking at the controls but not touching them, as if he'd rather move them with his mind. "Feliopolis?"

"Nah," the Second said, walking over to him, but looking at the controls also. "Too many Cyclonians. I'd rather keep my brains in tact, thank you. Bordras?"

The First looked at him as if he were mad. "You're joking," he questioned. "Remember what happened the last time?"

"Oh yeah..." replied the second thoughtfully. "I forgot."

"You _forgot_?" The very idea of forgetting something about this odd word seemed to be inconceivable, and the First showed it by throwing his arm out. "You're telling me the exploding Jaagnus just 'slipped your mind'?"

"We are talking a while ago."

"Even so."

They looked at each other heatedly, as if having a real argument. To Rose it just seemed a jumbled up mess of words. All talk about death and dying for the universe seemed to have gone out the window. Maybe he had been joking? But she'd never known the Doctor to joke about death. Especially not his own. Well, except just before he regenerated. But was that him, or the other him, or what? God, this was confusing. And it didn't help that both of them were rambling on about... well, she didn't know what. Places he - they - knew, apparently.

"Why can't we just... explore here?" she said suddenly. They both turned to look at her, one frowning, the other relatively content.

"It's deserted, Rose," the First said, somewhat sombrely. "I made sure the TARDIS found somewhere nice and quiet. Besides, I popped my head out earlier and this place is dustier than your attic."

"Oi," she laughed. "Still... it could be fun. Where are we?"

"Who _cares_?" came an excited cry from the second Doctor. Somehow, he had managed to wander over to the door of the TARDIS and open it. He was surveying the surroundings - miles and miles of strange, blue dust. He turned back to look at the pair. His face was spread in an ecstatic grin, as if someone had told him he could eat ice-cream for every meal for the rest of his life. "This place is great!"

The first Doctor frowned.

"Last I saw, this place was a giant sand-pit. Define 'great'."

"Well," the Second reasoned, "It's a bit of fun, isn't it? Besides, where there's sand, there must be something else. Something to explore. What's the worst that could happen?"

"Last time I heard that," Rose put in, "The guy from the Dr. Pepper advert fell off his swing-seat."

Both of them looked at her, with complete and utter bemusement on their faces. Rose shrugged and muttered something about an old advert on TV. The two Doctors exchanged the same looking - ridiculous grinning - both inwardly deciding that she was crazy.

"So... uh... where are we, again?" she asked again. She sometimes wished that they - he - whoever - could just answer her questions simply. But then, that was never so much fun. The first Doctor walked over to a screen, protruding out of the centre controls of the TARDIS. He jabbed a few buttons, but nothing seemed to happen.

"Hrm," he said thoughtfully after a while. The Second joined him quickly by his side. His face went from pleasant to what seemed to be horror in less than half a second.

"You're kidding..." he almost whispered. Then, his face lit up again, and he looked directly at Rose. The smile was in his eyes. "Planet Nine!" he exclaimed, as if this gave every answer to her questions. "I can't believe the TARDIS managed it." He patted her coaxingly. "Good old girl, really."

Rose looked utterly confused.

"Planet nine?" she asked feebly. "That's it?" She was expecting something more exciting or exotic sounding. Mind you, if it was deserted, what could she expect?

"That's nine with a capital 'N', you know. Amazing..." the Second said, putting his hands in his pockets and leaning against the controls. The first Doctor, however, seemed to be a little more worried. A strange, grinding sound was beginning to come from outside and he punched at the controls a little faster than was comfortable.

"What you found, Doctor?" Rose asked, recognising the look across his face at once. He didn't look up.

"We're stuck," he said, his voice concentrated. The light from the monitor reflected on his face, giving him an eerie yellow tinge. The second Doctor, who knew exactly what was going on, merely smiled as the First explained.

"What d'you mean... 'stuck'...?" asked Rose, heading over to the Doctor and looking over his shoulder. She couldn't make sense of the symbols and flashing lights on the screen. "Like, you can't time-travel? Can't leave?"

"I thought you were the one who wanted to stay," he said almost tersely.

"Yeah, well..."

"And no, I mean actually stuck." He gestured idly to the door with a wave of his hand. "The TARDIS is sinking, and we're going down with it."

It took a second or two to register.

"You're kidding."

Rose ran to the door and tugged, but it didn't do any good. The pressure of the sand around them was keeping it closed tightly.

"Nope, he's not kidding," the Second said brightly, lifting himself off the console and wandering over to her. He leant lazily against the door, his eyes darting over her face, and his expression suddenly thoughtful. But before she knew it, he was smiling again. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but paused, his mouth hanging open in mid-air. God he looked like an idiot, Rose thought. A total idiot. A complete and utter nutter.

His eyes widened with mischief.

"We're going down," he said. Even if she couldn't have seen him, his voice alone told her that he was smiling. "Down into the depths of Planet Nine. I'd never have guessed it. Me, the Doctor!"

"But... how?" Rose asked, She swung around, her back leaning against the door.

"Security device," the First replied, still at the controls. But then he sighed, gave up, and looked at the pair. "They're not used to intruders here. I was wrong, this whole planet's _supposed_ to be deserted. Stranded. Alone. But it's not. There's something here."

"Who's they?" Rose asked dangerously. It was always a dangerous question with the Doctor, but she always had to know.

The first Doctor shrugged.

"Dunno," he replied oh-so-helpfully. "Whoever owns this planet, I s'pose. The TARDIS wasn't exactly clear."

"Why don't you look again, then? Y'know, check, or something." It seemed obvious to Rose, but sometimes even the most obvious things completely passed the Doctor by.

"Can't," he said, smiling.

"Why?"

This was answered by the second Doctor, who caught the eye of the First. "They've shut it down, haven't they?" he asked excitedly.

The First nodded and the Second beamed.

"Clever little blighters. Didn't like the foreign system, so they shut it down. Wonderful. Amazing."

"I think the word you're looking for is 'fantastic'," the first Doctor smiled. But it was a patronising smile, and he obviously wasn't enjoying this as much as the other. "We'll have to see what they make of us."

"Prisoners, probably," the Second suggested thoughtfully. "Considering there's nothing else _on_ this planet."

"What does that mean?"

The second Doctor looked at Rose and, just for a second, a real look of worry passed over his face.

"This planet's real name," he said, no longer smiling, "- Aside from the one that has thirty-seven syllables - is roughly translated into Blue Prison. It's been called Planet Nine because it's a mystery to what they really do here. Some only say it's a prison. Others, a great big laboratory where they test everything out about the universe. Fascinating."

Rose looked sharply at the first Doctor, her stomach clenching.

"You knew exactly where we were, didn't you Doctor?" she asked, her eyes fixed on him. He had his hands in the pocket of his trusty old leather jacket and he averted her gaze. "You knew it was a prison, and that it wasn't deserted. You knew happy-go-lucky here would want to explore, too, so you didn't protest when the TARDIS landed."

At this, he did look at her, and he looked hurt.

"I only knew after we'd landed, by which time it was too late anyway," he replied, his voice crisp. "Okay, so I knew we were gonna get caught. Doesn't mean I wanted to kill anyone in the process."

The second Doctor sucked his teeth.

"You're talking about me, aren't you?" he said innocently. Rose shot him a look that told him to be quiet, but he didn't bite. "No, honestly, I don't mind," he continued, beginning to wander the room again. Rose had a feeling he would have a habit of doing that. "I know how the code works. I'm not daft." He was looking at and talking to the first Doctor now, who at least had the courtesy to look him back in the eye. "It's wrong, both of us being here. Not following the laws of time. And one of us is going to have to deal with the consequences."

The First shrugged, and Rose gave him an appalling look. How could he be so casual? But at the same time, she couldn't say anything about it herself; there was nothing _to_ say.

"But until then," the second Doctor continued brightly, stepping over between his two companions. He laid a hand on the other Doctor's shoulder, and put his other arm around Rose. He looked forward from one to the other, grinning. "What d'you say, Doc? Rose? One last run? Before it's all over?"

The first Doctor sniffed, and raised both his eyebrows. "You know, I hate that name as much as you do."

Rose and the Second laughed together, making the First bristle slightly. But then he relaxed, and gave a chuckle. He looked behind the second Doctor towards Rose, who caught his eye.

"One more, then?" he asked cheerily. She beamed at him.

"G'wan then."

He tipped his head to her, smiling and accepting her answer. The three of them made their way to the door, where all the second Doctor had to do was tug lightly on the door. It folded open, giving them a wonderful view of what lay ahead. Apparently, they had stopped moving.

"Oh, yeah," the Second chuckled brightly, stepping out into the open. "Bring it on."

"Idiot," laughed Rose as his head turned from side to side taking in the surroundings. She began to leave the TARDIS, but suddenly stopped and turned back. "You comin', Doctor?"

The faintest traces of a smile began and his mouth and then, suddenly, it cracked into a wide-open grin, his face lit up by the entire experience.

This, he decided as he trotted out of the TARDIS, Rose following, was going to be the most fun he had had in centuries.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Going out without a plan had been a mistake. Especially with two Doctors rather than one. When there was just one, it was fine. He would rush in with some cock-and-bull story which he had made up on the spot, and it - usually - always worked. On the rare occasions that it didn't, he had always thought of an escape plan. Usually it involved legging it.

But now there were two of them, each gallivanting off with their own ideas and each eccentric enough to blow each other's cover. Not, as it turned out, that it mattered.

The psychic paper had failed ("Of course," the second Doctor had realised with interest. "They're machine. They don't recognise the shift the neurological atomic structure,") as had the 'Oh, we're just passing through, no need to worry' approach.

They had been brought down in to the depths of the planet by a lift mechanism and the TARDIS' doors had opened into a large, metallic room, with a corridor leading away from it on the far side. The corridor turned a corner after only a few metres, so it was impossible to see just where it led. On the silvery walls were orange-yellow lights resting in crevices; but other than that, the walls were bare. The floor was black-and-white tiled, but smooth, as if it had been laid down in one, big sheet. The air that Rose breathed in felt clean and fresh, as if she could live off only air for all eternity. It was enough to make her go slightly giddy.

The first sign of life - well, artificial intelligence as it turned out, but near enough - was a spider-like device, which fell gracefully from the ceiling on a thick, metal cord. Its red eye focused on the unlikely trio, and the machine whirred slightly as it did so. The second Doctor had stepped up and waved the psychic paper guardedly around with some haphazard explanation, but this had obviously been a waste of time as, when he attempted to step past the device and in to the corridor, he was thrown backwards by some sort of invisible force-field. The metal spider didn't seem to react at all: it just turned to look at each of them, swinging on the cord, until it came to a stop on Rose and focused closer. She stepped back, a little unnerved.

"What... what is that?" she asked, not taking her eyes off it.

"It's a camera," replied the First, now taking his own step in front of the machine, putting himself between it and Rose as he did so. He put his face to the lens and grinned. "Hello," he said brightly, his face relaxing. "I'm the Doctor. I know you can see me and hear me, so watch and listen. We're here to check your planet out, and we want a word with you."

The camera turned to look at the second Doctor, who was standing a little way back, his hands hiding away in his pockets. Again, the camera didn't react, just whirred and clicked, and brought itself up a little so that it could focus on Rose again.

"It's looking right at me," she said, trying to steady her breathing.

"Oh, so it is," said the Second helpfully, casting a wary look up at it. Then he caught her eye and grinned. "Maybe it wants to 'experiment'."

"It's not funny," she said, her voice wavering. The last time something had looked at her like that, she had been trapped with a Dalek in Van Statten's Laboratory; not something she wanted to repeat any time soon.

"You're perfectly safe, Rose," the second Doctor assured, his voice serious.

"Why's that? 'Cause I'm with you?"

"No," he replied, as if the very idea was too shocking to even contemplate. "Because it's rumoured this planet loves women. Especially human women."

Rose did a double take. "You what?"

"You heard him," came the soft Northern accent of the first Doctor. He was still facing the spider-camera and reached up to tap at it gently. It sounded hollow. "And this thing's a pile of rubbish. Just swings and hums a bit. Not even worth the metal it's made of."

"Decoy?" asked the Second, walking next to him and taking a similar interest.

"Nah," disagreed the First. "More like a distraction. But what for?"

The answer came from Rose.

"Doctor!" she cried suddenly, her voice panicked. Both of them turned, but didn't need to ask what she was calling them about. While they had been - as the First had suggested - distracted by the supposed camera, the real threat had made itself present. The odd, plain walls behind them had silently disappeared. In their place was a sheet of energy, colourless, but very obviously there. It looked like heat rising up off the dirty, dusty ground, like a heat wave. Wait... dirty? Dusty? Rose saw now that the floor had been pulled out from underneath them, and they were actually standing one what seemed to be a plastic sheet. The real floor showed below. Dirt. Like Earth dirt.

What was more worrying, though, was the TARDIS. A sheet of energy had come up behind all three of them, separating them from the helpful blue box. And they'd been stupid enough to leave the door wide open. Rose could hear the Doctor's - the first Doctor's - voice in her head, even though he never said a word, "Were you born in a barn, Rose, or what?"

Rule number one of being last out of the TARDIS: always close the door.

And now, of course, small worm-like things with hundreds of tiny legs (the worms must have been about the size of a hamster) were beginning to make their way interestedly towards the TARDIS. There must have been hundreds of them.

_If those things get near my bed_, Rose thought bitterly, _I swear, I'll never sleep again_.

It should have been the last of her worries, but she figured that as long as she had someone nice, cosy and safe to come back to, then everything would always be all right. Stupid, she knew, but it made a certain kind of sense; the sort of sense the Doctor might make.

The second Doctor was tapping at his jacket frantically and muttering something that sounded like, "Where the hell did I leave that screwdriver," but the First beat him to it, stepped as close to the energy field as he dared and fired up the sonic screwdriver, all in one, swift motion. He aimed it at the worm things trying to get in to the TARDIS. They reared backwards like horses and a deafening, screeching painful sound filled the air as their cry echoed around the cavern they were now stood in. It was so unbearable that Rose clapped her hands to her ears.

"Get away from the TARDIS!" the first Doctor shouted furiously above the din. He was answered almost instantly by a new, foreign voice that came from everywhere and nowhere. It was a rasping, unfriendly voice and it sounded something like an airport intercom. It also sounded like it was laughing.

"You are not the ones who make the rules here, Time Lord," it mocked. The screwdriver clicked off and the comforting blue light died. The worms shook themselves, like dogs that have just run back from the sea, and continued their work with the TARDIS, some entering it through the open door, some climbing up the outside. The worms on the outside suddenly shot out a protruding stinger - at least, Rose assumed it was a stinger - and began tapping rapidly at the TARDIS repeatedly, like a woodpecker. Like a mass of woodpeckers.

"What did you do that for?" she hissed to the first Doctor, indicating the deactivated screwdriver.

"_I_ didn't," he replied darkly, his eyes looking longingly at his abused TARDIS. "They did."

"What're they doing to the TARDIS?" Rose asked in shock, her eyes wide.

"Testing it," said the second Doctor. He was stood on the other side of her, his eyes fixed firmly on the ship. His home. He sighed, but his face showed no emotion. "They're testing it for weaknesses so they can either scrap it or use the material for something useful."

"Oh," Rose said dejectedly. Each of the Doctors was touched to hear mourn in her voice. "What can we do?"

"Nothing," admitted the First wearily. "Unless you fancy getting fried going through this energy field."

"Enough talk," boomed the rasping voice which had spoken earlier. Rose looked about herself, as if expecting to see it coming from somewhere. But there was no clue. The room they had arrive in had now completely disappeared. Ahead of each of each of the heat-wave-energy-walls was the outsretch of a huge, underground cavern. The worms that were covering the TARDIS were of many, running along and up the walls, running here, running there, all dashing about doing something terribly important. None of them were really concentrating on the three behind the invisible cage. Rose wondered if they were intelligent at all - they reminded something of giant ants, except... well, worms. And ants couldn't think. Not really.

The last wall with the corridor had disappeared to reveal only a dirt wall, and the spider-device had disappeared into the dusty ceiling. It was all so strange, so unfamiliar. The three of them were trapped in a hazy cage, and it was all they could do to watch the TARDIS be swarmed over by a bunch of ant-worms.

The rasping voice spoke again. "You are all prisoners of the Galactic Planet Delta Nine, quadron six-five-seven-two-three... Oh, I really can't be bothered. Welcome to your slow death. We will send someone to convene with you shortly."

The voice faded away again, an then there was silence. It was weird - Rose could _see_ everything that was going on beyond the energy wall, but she couldn't hear anything. All she could hear was her own, shuddered breathing, and maybe even one or two breaths from the Doctors. No noise of outside was getting to them.

"So, what's the plan?" Rose asked, her head turning left and right to look at what was going on around them.

"Survive, for the moment," the First replied, still looking at the TARDIS. The lift mechanism it had been used to be lowered into the cavern was, he could see, on wheels. Wheels which they were now using to wheel the damned thing away. Oh, bloody fantastic.

"Talk to me," said a voice softly at his side. He jumped, looked at Rose, then smiled. But then he looked past her, at the second Doctor, who was standing dangerously close to where two of the walls met.

"Not likely to find anything there, mate," he said to him, and the Second turned. "You know as well as I do about the rumours."

The other laughed. "No, you're right. But I can't sit around and wait for them to start experimenting on us."

"Me neither," the First agreed brightly. "Maybe we should look at the facts."

"The TARDIS is out of our hands," the Second said, counting out all the facts on his fingers with his other hand. "The sonic screwdriver has been deactivated. We're trapped in an energy prison with no way out. I'm still not fully recovered from regeneration - " he ignored the look given to him by the First and kept talking - "There's too much mystery about this planet to even come up with a reason. And finally, we're probably the most interesting, clever things here. So we should be able to come up with something."

"Hrm," the first Doctor said thoughtfully, his brow furrowing. "Give me a minute on that."

Rose felt very much like a third wheel. Here were these two clever, witty, sharp and intelligent men, each matching each other's thinking abilities. They could chat about the stars and the universe for hours on end; about planets they'd visited, and what the best course of action would be and how to get out of a sticky situation. She couldn't do any of that. She could only do what she was told, and even that was pushing it sometimes. And for some reason, _she_ was the one who felt guilty about the lot of them being in this mess. It was, after all, her who had suggest they should explore, wasn't it? Maybe if she'd just let the Doctor get on with it, they would be half way around the galaxy by now, instead of stuck underground waiting until they were eaten, or experimented on, or questioned, or tortured. Or all of the above. She shuddered.

The second Doctor's head snapped up mid sentence, as if he were tuned in to exactly how Rose was feeling. His brown eyes became deep with worry, and his shoulders relaxed. He walked over to her and touched her gently on the arm. She looked up at him.

"Rose?" he asked softly, his eyes searching hers. She had never heard him speak like that before. He was always such a joker.

"I..." she began, looking away and down at the floor. "This is all my fault, Doctor. If I hadn't have said we should explore, you'd have got us out. If I had listened to you more... if I hadn't have awoken the TARDIS like I did, taken it into me..."

Her voice was broken now, probably with the tears that had found their way into her eyes, and the second Doctor recognised in her what he had seen in her earlier. That she wasn't ready for all of this. And he could have kicked himself.

He pulled her to him, his long coat wrapping around her. He laid his head gently on hears.

"Shhh," he soothed. "None of this is anyone's fault. Nobody could have known what was down here. Besides, it's an adventure, isn't it? Our first, I believe."

She looked up at him, not quite sure how she'd managed to get into his arms or why she didn't want to leave. He tried not to smile as he saw her mascara was smudged.

"But..." she said, her voice still faulty. "You're so..."

"Different?" he suggested, smiling softly. She nodded. He let go of his grip on her and she stood on her own, a little calmed. She gulped down the lump in her throat and looked at the first Doctor. He had his back towards them and his head, she thought, was down a little. Perhaps he was trying to give them some privacy, even though it was perfectly easy to hear every word they said. The second Doctor touched her arm lightly, and she looked back. His eyes were smiling.

"And if you hadn't've taken the TARDIS inside you and come back for me," he said reassuringly, not taking his eyes off her for a minute, "Then I'd be dead. And so would the Earth. The entire world, Rose. You saved it. It that one stupid moment when you gave it all up for me, you saved the world you loved."

She breathed away a hiccup. It hadn't been real crying, she told herself. Not really. Just a momentary lapse of strength. That was it.

Rose felt something strange come over her, as if she was picking up on a strange radio wave, or frequency. It hit her hard, and she suddenly gasped and looked around to the first Doctor, who hadn't moved. She was speaking to the Second, but she kept her eyes on the First.

"The past won't help us now," she said slowly. "We have to think for ourselves."

"Two Time Lords born of the same brain, and a higher-than-average-intelligence humanoid," said the First suddenly, turning around to the both of them. He was grinning from ear to ear (which, Rose reckoned, was quite an achievement). "Easy peasy."

"How'd you figure?" Roe wondered aloud.

"Well, they said they'll be sending someone to 'convene' with us soon," he began, pacing, his brain working fast. "Obviously they think we're stupid, otherwise they wouldn't have kept us together in the same cell. So maybe we should act stupid."

"Eh?" the second Doctor asked, not quite catching on. They shared a look.

"What have I always told you, Rose?" the First said, looking around to his second companion, but somehow still keeping an eye on the other. She searched her brain.

"That to get to the big bad, you gotta go through the motions?"

His face lit up, his blue eyes sparkling.

"Exactly. So you _have_ been listening."

"S'all I can do not to, Doctor, the way you talk," she grinned.

"Careful, or I'll turn on you," he laughed. Then he looked to his other companion, the regeneration of himself. "Largest rumour of this planet," he demanded, as if he were testing his other self.

"That they love women," the Second said simply. "I said that before. They think women are the answer to everything."

Both of them ignored Rose's cry of shocked dismay and demands for more answers.

"Precisely. And the best way to fool an alien planet..."

"Oh, no," the Second cut in, shaking his head. "No way. That was bad enough on Hecatoid. I swore, I'm never again dressing up like a wo-" He stopped himself just in time, and coughed. But Rose had caught on.

"Like a what, Doctor?" she asked, eyeing him innocently. He cleared his throat.

"Nothing," he replied earnestly, his cheeks burning like a bonfire on November the 5th.

"No, that's not what I was getting at," the First continued, though his cheeks had also flared. "Just stick the two together."

"Of course!" the second Doctor suddenly realised, and he swung to Rose, his face grinning. "Rose! You know you've always loved me," he winked jokingly. "Do us a favour."

"I don't get it," she said simply, looking from one to the other with indignation.

"Well, it's simple," the first Doctor explained. "This planet thinks that the females of every race are the most intelligent, funny, clever, beautiful things they've ever seen. They love 'em."

"- Bit like Earth, then," Rose muttered. The second Doctor laughed.

"- The men here are probably like an ant colony," the First continued, as if he had not been interrupted. "You know, all soldiers and workers. Not the thinkers. So when the chance first arrives, Rose, you have to be our leader. Or at least play pretend. Treat us with the same contempt and annoyance as you'd treat an annoying puppy that follows you around. They'll listen to you, then, and we might have a chance."

She looked from one to the other expectant faces and burst out laughing, her blonde hair bouncing all over the place as a consequence. When she finally came up for air, with tears in her eyes, the two Doctors were looking at each other with dismay.

"I don't think she likes it," the First said, but his voice hadn't quite reached surprised.

"Are you kidding? 'Course she does," countered the Second, watching her every movement with his eyes. "She just thinks we're mad."

"Got it in one, Doctor," Rose choked, still laughing. "But, I s'pose I always have. And it'd never work. I'm crap at actin'. Ask the school drama department. G'wan, ask them why people actually 'boo'd the last production they put on."

"It's our only chance," sang the first Doctor, and his voice was not without glee.

"In your hands," agreed the Second modestly.

"We'll just be quiet and you tell us what to do."

"This is..." Rose laughed, trying to find a word that would describe the situation best. Bizarre. Impossible. Incredible. "Never gonna work," she finished finally.

The second Doctor looked at her in mock horror.

"Faith, Rose!" he said, jumping towards her, grabbing her hands and twirling her around as if there were music. "You have to have faith!"

"Dancing lessons, too, by the look of it," commented the first Doctor with a smile.

"And I suppose you think _your_ dancing is just perfect, don't you Doctor?" she asked back, her voice laced in sarcasm. Actually, he did rather. But he'd never let on.

"C'mon," he said suddenly, looking out past the energy field. "Give it up, you two. It's showtime."

Snaking through the crowds of ant-worms was coming something that looked very human-like. Two arms, legs, hands, feet, eyes, ears, and all where they should be. Except for one obvious difference, which Rose knew she would have to try very hard to ignore.

In his hand was, what Rose would have described as, a futuristic space gun. The second Doctor had let her go, by this point, and the three of them were watching and waiting for the oncoming storm.

"He's _orange_," she whispered harshly, though not entire sure to whom she was talking.

"So?" demanded the Second incredulously. "Something _wrong_ with orange?"

"No," Rose corrected quickly as she watched him get closer and closer to the cage. "It's just... I didn't expect it."

"Not sure what you did expect," muttered the second Doctor gruffly in reply.

"All right," the First said, his eyes and ears alert. The orange man was almost at the cage "This is it. Places, everyone."

Great, Rose thought as he produced something that looked like a credit card, but larger, and began to wave it in front of to energy wall. The wall shook intensely for a second, and then disappeared. There was now nothing separating them. The world's most farfetched plan - maybe even the universe's - and nothing but too cocky aliens and a fairly sensible human to act it out. What on Earth could go wrong?


	5. Swallowed

_**A/N**: I love all of you lovely reviewers! Knowing what people think and why, be it long words or only a couple, makes me have that nice, happy warm feeling inside. Thanks to _**bookEnd**_ and _**Lady-Mearle **_especially, as I always love to see the same people coming back for more :p I've got a busy couple of days coming up, but I'll try to update if and when I can. Until then, enjoy:D_

_-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _

Chapter V - Swallowed

"Name," grunted the orange man wearily. Everything about his posture screamed 'bored', including his eyes, his voice, and his messed up hair. He was wearing what looked to be an all-in-one suit of... well, Rose didn't know what. All she knew was that the question - or demand, rather - had been directed at her.

"Uh..." she fumbled. Was she supposed to give her real name, or what? For the Doctor it was easy. He was always 'The Doctor'. No questions. Okay, so there _were_ questions, but he'd always pull off an answer without actually giving any more information. All Rose had was her name, and even that was dubious right now.

"And don't even try any funny stuff," continued the orange man, looking at the pair of Doctors - who looked rather like two naughty schoolboys - then back to Rose. He motioned to the energy field he'd just walked through. "I can put that back faster than you can say 'intruder'. Now, name."

"R-rose..." Rose stuttered at last. Honesty, her mum had told her, was always the best policy. But had her mum ever been to an alien planet? She doubted it. Not with how firmly her feet were stuck on the ground. "Tyler," she continued. "Rose Tyler."

"Fine," he grunted. "These two belong to you?"

He waved his gun carelessly at the pair again, but didn't bother with a look. They weren't worth his time.

"Uh... yeah..." she said slowly, her tongue rolling over the letters. Well done, Rose, she told herself. Really convincing. "Yes."

He snorted with contempt.

"Wouldn't admit to it so freely if I were you. They're under close observation. Disruptive behaviour - "

She couldn't help throwing them a glance.

"- And they look awful, too. Surprised you haven't shrunk them down yet."

"Oi," Rose said, before she could stop herself. Since they'd first met, she had always felt protective over the Doctor. Like he was a brother, or something. Or something, come to think of it - definitely something: not a brother, that's for sure. "Tha's rude."

The orange man's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Sorry," he said, though he quite clearly didn't mean it. "Not my job to offend. I'm just collecting details."

"And that's what the gun is for, is it?"

The strength and confidence was returning to Rose's voice heavily, and she was taking a bold risk. Both of the Doctors thought so, but neither of them said it. They'd both done stupider things in their time. Well, his time, technically.

"The gun's for them," the orange man replied coldly, waving at the pair again. "In case they act up. Wouldn't be the first time an owner lost control."

Rose, who was standing in easy sight of the Doctors, turned slightly and mouthed 'owner'? Her face crinkled up with each movement of her mouth, even though she said nothing.

They both avoided her eye contact, as if even _looking_ at her was too much of a risky business.

The orange man sniffed to bring her attention back to him. It worked.

"Best get them packed off with the rest of the workers. You're to come with me."

"I don't understand," Rose said honestly. It was all so… alien… to her. She had never been on an alien planet before, not like this. Everything the Doctor had taken to see had been to do with Earth, somehow connected. Though, if this guy was human – of sorts – did that mean that they weren't too far from home? Where were they? _When_ were they? She wished the Doctor had had time to explain.

The orange man frowned, and looked at her as though she were stupid. Which, Rose thought, he probably thought she was.

"They," he said slowly, his voice sneering as he pointed to the odd-looking men standing next to each other, "Will be taken to the others. Of their kind. You are to come with me. The scan revealed that you were the female of your species, are you not?"

Crumbs, they didn't _really_ love women, did they?

"Well, yeah," Rose admitted. "But why can't they come too?"

The orange man snorted, again, and looked at her with a frown. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"Depends. Where's 'here'?"

"You can't tell me you don't know where you are. It's not as if you 'fell' here by accident. It's impossible."

"Nothing's impossible with the Doctor around," Rose corrected.

As soon as she'd said it, she knew she shouldn't have. Apart from the obvious held-in gasp from at least one of the men behind her, the orange man instantly tensed, tightened his grip on his gun and brought it up to look at Rose. He didn't aim his body so he could fire, but it was quite obvious that he could at any moment. The smoothed, rounded edge of the barrel looked as though the only thing that would be coming out of it would be a laser.

"You don't own them at all, do you?" he accused, anger rising in his unfamiliar voice. "I could tell, just by looking at you. You rely on them. You're nothing without them. Human scum."

"That's enough!" the first Doctor interrupted suddenly. He had been watching the entire scene, convincing himself that Rose was all right and that she had everything under control. But she was being held at gunpoint and no one, nothing, no matter how high-and-mighty they thought they were would _ever_ get away with hurting her like that.

He stepped forward, towering over the little orange man. But the man didn't flinch. He merely shifted the aim of his gun and jabbed it into the chest of the first Doctor. He felt the cold metal through his cotton t-shirt. But better him than Rose.

"Get back," spat the orange man, revulsion and disgust evident in his voice. "Get _back_! Or I'll blast your guts all over the walls!"

"No you won't," said the First confidently, smiling. "You don't have the authority to. You would have done it already. And I bet that gun of yours isn't even loaded."

For a second, a flicker of fear passed over the orange man's face. It receded quickly, but it was too late. His bluff had been called, and there was nothing he could do.

"One move, and you're both dead," he said harshly, his eyes glinting with malevolence. "I can't kill you, but if you even _try_ to get out of here, you'll be dead before you even take your next breath. The worms will see to that."

It was a threat the Doctor didn't particularly want to test. Not with Rose involved.

"But you must admit, you _are_ being a bit of an idiot," came the second Doctor's voice. He was talking to the orange man, looking amusedly from the gun to his face. "You can go back to your superiors and tell them to send someone competent down to deal with us. All we want to do is talk."

"Tough," snapped the orange man, reeling from the insult. "You aren't visitors here, _Doctor_," he sneered the name with disdain, "You're prisoners. My orders were to collect the girl. You may not care about your life, but if you want to see her live – and I take it you do – then you'd best be following our orders. And don't think I won't be telling them about what happened in here, either."

He lowered the gun, but put a grip of iron around Rose's forearm. He pulled her along with him.

"Come on," he growled as she stumbled over her feet. "You're coming with me."

"Rose!" cried the two Doctors simultaneously.

"Don't you _dare_ hurt her," barked the First, his eyes blazing with fury again. "If you do, I'll – "

"You'll what?" cut in the orange man. "Yell me to death? Sorry, I make the rules here. And she's coming with me, hurt or not."

He'd pulled her beyond the wall of energy and was reaching for the credit-card device to replace the dangerous rays. All around, the ant-worms were taking a very keen interest in the little crowd, keeping their beady little eyes on the two men left behind. They couldn't have escaped. It was hopeless.

"Rose!" cried the Second, desperate to try none the less. He ran towards them, but one of the worms suddenly launched itself into the air towards the Doctor. It landed on his arm, lifted its head and looked as though it would sink its venom-filled teeth into his arm like a vampire. He shook it off with surprising force, and it fell to the floor, a little confused.

But the orange man looked at him and sneered.

"That was just a warning. One bite off them, and you'll be dead in less than half an hour. Slowly and painfully, I hope."

The second Doctor swore, his eyes dark and angry. Rose, the grip on her arm tightening furiously, looked at him with pleading eyes. She didn't know what to do.

"I'll find you," he assured her, their eyes meeting. "Hold on, Rose. I'll come for you."

"Touching," laughed the orange man, his eyes mocking. "Have fun."

He waved the card again, and the wall of energy rose up instantly. The noise from the outside died away. The two Doctors were left together, panting with the situation.

They watched as Rose was dragged away. She kicked at one of the worms that approached her, its teeth bared, and it fell back into line with the rest of them. But that movement earned her a slap across the face from the orange man from his free hand, and when she looked back to the Doctors in their energy field there were tears in her eyes. Her mouth was open, and she was obviously crying out for them. And then, she disappeared in to an opening in the dusty wall of the massive cavern, taken along against her will.

The second Doctor was still stood at the wall of the cage, his breath broken and his eyes flaring. He had failed to protect her. He'd let her go.

The First wasn't doing much better either. He was hating himself, all of himself, for not being able to control his actions, his emotions. If he hadn't have threatened the man, called his bluff, perhaps Rose's fate would be different. Perhaps all of their fates would be different. But he felt as though he'd killed her. Again. She was all on her own, thanks to him and his stupid big mouth.

They stood in silence, each thinking and wondering about what to do next. Their different brains and ideas were working cumulatively towards the same idea – escape. But neither said anything. They just watched life fall away at their fingertips.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If either of the Doctors had had the nerve or sense to address the situation formally, the conversation might have gone something like this.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"_You," accused the Second, his voice obviously angry even though he was trying to keep it calm. The First could always recognise that voice, whether he was in his own self or watching the man he would turn into. "You are the biggest idiot in the world. The universe."_

"_At least I tried something," he retorted angrily. There was nothing else to do. "At least I tried to save her."_

"_You didn't try to save her," laughed the Second, turning around to glare at the First. "You just wanted to feed your ego. Thought you could handle it."_

_The First would have argued, but something in it was true. And the Second must have known it, because he used to _be_ him. _

"_If you'd have kept quiet," the Second continued, rounding on his predecessor, "She wouldn't be in the mess she is now. She'd have everything under control and she'd probably have saved us all."_

"I _know that. But t_hat's_ a lot of confidence in someone you don't even know."_

"_I _do_ know her!" the second Doctor shouted back. "I know her as well as you do. Better, because at least I can think about her with a clear mind."_

"_Oh, and what's that supposed to mean? You throwing words around as insults again?"_

"_You know exactly what it means," the Second said darkly. He slipped his hands the pocked of his brown overcoat and frowned, deep and hard. "You were the idiot that broke the rules."_

"_She wanted to come with me," the First replied strongly. "You know her. She wouldn't have taken no for an answer."_

"_That's not what I was getting at," the Second countered. "And you know it. You're always so full of yourself, Nine. You never took the time to think about the consequences of your actions. It's amazing she's still alive."_

"_Oh, so we're on to number-name basis now, are we?"_

_The Second glared. "You crossed a line," he said, his voice relaxing a little. He needed to keep control. "You wanted her to give you things that no human is capable to give you."_

"_That's not true," he lied harshly. "I want to keep Rose safe and happy. I want to show her the stars, and the universe. And I don't want to do it alone."_

"_No," agreed the Second, his eyes flashing. "And you're so convinced you are, aren't you? So convinced that the Time War was the last ending. That there's no hope, and that you're the only one who can save us all. You just don't want to accept the truth."_

"_What truth?"_

"_That you fell in love with her. You let your heart take over and it almost got us all killed."_

_The accusation hit him like someone had just kicked him in the chest, winding him. It had met its target._

"_I didn't," he stumbled. "I couldn't even if I'd wanted to, anyway."_

"_I was _you_, you stupid idiot. I could feel it, in here," the Second tapped at the left part of his chest with his hand. "Stupid enough to get a crush on the one woman you had to leave alone. It's just as well I died for her. It cleared my mind to your stupidity."_

_The First's face darkened and his eyes looked like they would flash electricity. It was a strange conversation to be having, confronting himself like this._

"_Okay," he admitted bitterly. "I'll admit it. I loved her. Still do. But I didn't fall _in_ love with her, and because of that, no one's in any danger. You can't tell me you don't feel the same way."_

"_Have you _seen_ where we are?" the Second retorted. Uh oh, sarcasm. He supposed this is what happened when someone pushed one of his buttons. He took a steady breath to calm himself, and when he next spoke, his voice was calm and cool. "And no, I don't feel the same way," he said, looking the first Doctor straight in the eye. "She's a human. That's it."_

"_You know better than that," scoffed the First. "She knows things – "_

"_No," the Second cut across firmly. "She's just another human. Another companion, another friend. Like Adam, like Jack."_

_Jack Harkness – the name hit both of them with equal guilt. Would they see him again? He was someone _else_ they'd left behind._

"_So you're telling me that you could never feel that way about Rose?" the First asked, his voice betraying his interest._

"_I'm saying that it doesn't matter," corrected the Second. "I'm just reminding you that right now, you have to pretend that she's someone else. Don't let it cloud your judgement."_

"_You avoided the question."_

"_Now isn't the time." The second Doctor paused, looking at the First. He sighed. "But for what it's worth, no, I couldn't."_

_The First looked at him with such intense disbelief that he even wondered if he'd been lying to himself – but he hadn't. _

_The Second turned away and looked at the cavern, surrounded in ant-worms. He shuddered at the thought of facing them, and shrugged his shoulders. "But I can see how you might. I'm just more careful than you."_

_The First stepped up behind him, let out a long, loud sigh._

"_You told her you'd find her," he said after a while._

"_Yes, and I meant it," the second Doctor assured sternly as he blinked out at their surroundings._

_The First followed his gaze and wondered if they really had a plan at all. They could rush in, guns a-blazing, but would it help? Or would it secure their fates still further?_

"_I know," he replied, looking out. Then, more quietly to himself, "I know."_

_----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

But as it was, that conversation was lost into the fabric of time. Each word was left unsaid and each feeling left unchallenged. Instead, the two men just stood and stared and wondered what the hell they were going to do next.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This, Rose Tyler thought as she was being pushed along a corridor with a gun barrel in the small of her back, was the strangest day of her life. She hadn't slept in days – discounting when she had fainted from the TARDIS' time vortex – and already the Doctor had gained a new face, recovered an old one and got them into one of the biggest messes she had ever seen. It was, to borrow an age-old phrase, fantastic. In the worst sense of the word. Being frogmarched down dirty, dusty corridors, whose sides were covered in ant-worms, was not one of the best forms of escape. And she was, if she were honest with herself, not much without the Doctor: both of which she'd left behind.

"C'mon Blondie," growled the voice of the orange man from behind her. The gun pressed firmer into her back.

"Aright, yeah, I'm goin'," she snapped back, stepping over an overturned ant-worm in the middle of the stretch of corridor. She heard a sickening squelch a second later, and didn't much fancy looking back to see if the orange man had stepped on it. "Where're you taking me, anyway?"

The orange man laughed, a gruff laugh.

"Like you don't know," he snorted. "Anyone who was fool enough to 'accidentally' encounter and intrude upon Planet Nine – which, I don't believe you did - is bound to know the consequences sooner or later. Though, I'm looking forward to seeing how the Mistress deals with your disregard for the rules. You'll be seeing her later."

"What rules?" Rose persisted, as they turned left at a three-way fork in the corridor. There were little holes in the walls ever metre or so along the walls, where fire was burning to give a light. But the corridors were sloping and they were obviously heading further and further down into the depths of the planet.

"The rules that state quite clearly that in this sector of the galaxy, under the Declaration of Inter-Galactic Gender Constitution, all males of the species _must_ be kept under control at all times. This can be done by brainwashing, shrinking them down to size or just good, solid training; the latter of these doesn't usually work so well, as the males tend to lash out and – "

"Do you know what you sound like?" Rose laughed, interrupting him.

The gun pressed firmer into her back.

"What?" he dared dangerously.

"You sound like a bleeding text book," she replied, not intimidated. She remembered the Doctor's accusation that the gun was not loaded. "Did you memorise that off by heart, or what?"

"It is required of all trainees to do what is required for the appointed job," he replied stiffly.

"So, yes, then," Rose continued. The corridor wasn't getting any more interesting – just colder. "And what're they doing sending a trainee down to deal with us? I thought we were a threat."

"Don't flatter yourself. You're just more scum from the outside."

"You sound like you've never been anywhere but this planet," Rose said, ignoring the insult.

There was silence for a moment or two. And then, in a softer voice, "I haven't."

"Oh," she responded, surprised. "So... how'd you like, get here, then? This doesn't look like the world's – no, wait, sorry, the _universe's_ – most friendly planet."

"Enough questions," barked the orange man suddenly, but his voice was not without compassion. Rose was surprised to see that set in to the wall of the dirt there was a navy blue, dark door. There was no writing on it, and it was bare, except for what seemed to be a keyhole. It was right in the centre, round, but not quite a circle.

The gun on her back relaxed and she turned to see that the orange man was pointing it at the small hole. He clicked the trigger, and out of the barrel, there came a beam of light. It shifted and changed shape until it fit into the strange hole in the door. There was then a hollow 'click' and the door began to swing forwards.

Rose looked at the 'gun', astonished.

"You lied," she said stupidly. She looked to him. He was grinning sardonically. It was unpleasant to see.

"Of course I lied," he explained. "The biggest weapon we can use is fear. Well, to the human subconscious, at least. That small chance that it might all go wrong. And now, it's time for you to meet yours."

"My what?"

"Your fear."

"What?"

"Look, just get in there," he ordered, annoyed. He pointed to the door, now off the latch.

"You've got to be kidding," she almost laughed. "If you think I'm so much as stepping _foot_ – "

But she didn't have a choice. The orange man suddenly lunged at her, and pushed her at the door with amazing force. It all happened so fast that she had no idea what was going on until it was too late. And the next thing she knew, she was falling, down, down, down, through darkness and cold. There was nothing. No one. And she was soon swallowed, soon unable to distinguish whether the darkness was inside her head or outside. And then, it didn't matter. She was lost.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They were still standing in silence half an hour later. The sea of worm-ants was still as thick as before, continuing with their pathetic little working lives. It was very much like an Earth ant colony, the first Doctor had supposed - workers and soldiers, doing that they were told, maintaining the peace and happiness of the colony. But they were slaves, he realised. The real danger was yet to come, he knew. Somewhere within these walls, something was happening. Something that wasn't supposed to ever happen. This planet was supposed to be deserted and empty by this time, just another dead planet left after the humans had destroyed it.

Yes, this was a planet that humans had inhabited. They had eaten and destroyed every natural resource, before moving on. Like locusts. He liked the human race, oh he did, but they were so damn cocky and so sure they were right. They couldn't just leave well enough alone and realise that some stars just weren't meant for touching. He was reminded of Van Statten. Look where his dreams had got _him_?

And whether or not this planet 'should' be deserted, whatever was going on was quite clearly wrong. It was a prison camp, of sorts. No negotiating was involved in the slightest – they were just expected to conform. Well, he though brightly as he tucked his hands inside his leather jacket, not this prisoner. He would survive, save the world, and dance his victory dance before he off to the next adventure.

But of course, he wouldn't, would he? There was still the matter of the hiccup in time to think about. Not quite a paradox enough to cause any major trouble (he might have gone a little over the top when he had chatted to Rose about it – dramatic suspense, he supposed) and maybe the universe wasn't going to end; but they couldn't go on like this for much longer. It just wasn't right.

"We've been through a lot, you and I," he said wisely, looking around their cage. They cage had been jutting out of the wall like a sore thumb, but a quite a few minutes ago, it had undergone some very strange 'moving techniques'. It appeared to be on a mechanical mechanism, and very slowly, the cage had drifted back in to the wall; the wall that, to start with, had had the corridor leading away from it. The illusionary corridor. The hazy heat wave of energy was perfectly aligned with the front of the wall and the other three walls were now in front of dirt.

The Doctor realised that they were just another picture on the walls to look at, another cell of prisoners to gape at.

"Too much," added the Second thoughtfully, walking to the one free side that offered them a picture of what was going on outside. After a moment, he continued. "Too much to let a little matter of being trapped get in the way of saving a planet."

"I agree. So, what? We wait here for Rose's call?"

The Second looked to him as if he'd just suggested they strip naked and dance around like chickens.

"You're joking. She's about as equipped to deal with this planet as you are to deal with her mother."

"I can see what she means about you," replied the First, with amusement. "You really are rude."

"Comes with the territory, I'm afraid," he smiled. "But for now, what? Play dead?"

"Risky," answered the First thoughtfully, "We couldn't both of us get away with it. And a passed out worker is no good to them. It would have to be only one of us."

"Can we afford to split up?"

"We have to. For Rose."

"Yeah. God knows what they've done to her."

"Let's just hope the rumours are true," the first Doctor replied, sucking in a sigh.

"Can't see that working out too brightly either, though," the Second mentioned, looking up at the ceiling. More dirt. "She's hardly a one to conform to rules, especially if it would mean... what I think it would mean."

"No," agreed the First, grinning to his companion. "Can you imagine that?"

"Rose in the compulsory attire..." the second Doctor said aloud, as if saying it would help a picture come to mind. "About as likely as the universe folding in on itself."

"It could happen," mentioned the First. "Don't rule it out."

"I'm not. But the universe would fold in on itself _way_ before Rose would even _contemplate_ falling for their schemes."

"If we're right, that is."

"Of course." A pause. "Anyway, we're getting off the point."

"Right. So, escape. Think that happy chappy can lend a hand for us?"

The first Doctor was indicating to the return of an orange man, who was wading through the ant-worms once again. He practically tripped over one, kicked it, yelled at it, then kept marching towards the cell. It was quite amusing. It was not the one who had taken Rose: this one was built broader and larger, with heavier shoulders and a more unpleasant expression. He didn't look so thin and scrawny, but neither did he look so clever. He was the sort of chap you'd see being commanded by a bully.

"Depends if we have more brains than him," sad the Second.

"Oh, _definitely_," said the First, grinning. "He's as stupid as they come. Nothing but a slave, talking orders from his superiors. I'd love to see what's going on here."

"Well, now's our chance," commented the Second. "Look."

The orange man was heading straight for them, and his face was grim. He stepped up close towards the energy cage. But rather than produce the credit-card device, as the other one had last time, he lifted the nozzle of the gun he was holding to his mouth and spoke. Strangely enough, when he spoke, his voice echoed out in to the cage. It was surreal.

"Tests show that both of you are the alien Time Lords, the last remaining from planet Gallifrey, subject to the destruction of you home planet in a time war…"

"_What_?" exclaimed the second Doctor, his face contorted into surprise. "That's amazing. How'd they know that?"

"I don't know," replied the First darkly, looking through the barrier. "But I don't like it; I don't trust him."

"No. There was something weird about this planet the moment I looked at it. I could tell. I guess they know more than they let on."

"_Much_ more," the orange man's voice boomed again. "And much more than you would ever care to know, either, Doctor. Not that I should be addressing you as that. Prisoners #6-7-8-3 and #6-7-8-4 should suit nicely."

"Oh goody, so I'm just another number in the system," the First said brightly. "Best way to find out how it all works, isn't it? If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, that sort of thing."

"Where's this all leading to?" asked the Second with genuine interest. Then, suddenly more stern, "And what have you done with Rose?"

The orange man laughed bitterly.

"You should address me as Lieutenant Samuel Blaxhaul," he ordered. "I am your superior. You are of no authorisation to ask of the girl – "

"Oh, so you're _not_ just a slave," the First said thoughtfully. Then he turned to the Second with a grin. "I don't think our Sammy boy here knows where Rose is, y'know. Useless."

"That's Lieutenant Samu - "

"Nah, he doesn't have the clearance to," beamed the Second. "What's lieutenant? Understudy? Assistant? There's probably hundreds of them – "

"I SAID BE _QUIET_!" thundered the voice of Samuel into the room. This only made the Doctors smile harder.

"You said no such thing," said the Second with a mischievous smile. "Did you hear him say that?"

"Nope," said the First, shaking his head. "Not a word of it. He must be hearing things."

There was silence, an odd, growing one, which would hit you as hard and fast as an approaching truck. Outside, where neither of the Doctor's could hear, Samuel Blaxhaul spoke in to an earpiece:

"Yes, that's right, I need backup sent to cell 1-2-7. The prisoners are not co-operating and need to be dealt with via superior methods."

But all the Doctors heard was silence.

"I think we broke him," the Second wondered aloud. "Or perhaps he's just deactivated the resonance link between the cell and the outside area. Would make sense. We did insult him, and if I were him, I wouldn't be beyond – "

"You don't half ramble," the First observed with a grin. "You're turning a simple situation into something horribly complicated."

"All right, all right, I'm getting there. Keep your hair on. Such as it is."

The First folded his arms and graced his regeneration with a look that told him it was about time they find a way out of this mess and back to the TARDIS before any of them get seriously hurt.

But before either of them had the chance to even discuss a preferred escape route, a door set in to one of the dirty walls opened out of nowhere. They both gaped. In the frame stood something that looked like a thin, blue flower. For the stem there was a long, thin body with two arms and legs – like a stick man – and from the flower's head there blinked out two, menacing yellow eyes. It would be accurate in more than a metaphorical sense to have called it 'weedy' looking. It was quite bizarre.

It wasn't the fact that this alien was looking at them the startled the doctors; merely that there had been a door in the wall the entire time, camouflaged apparently, and neither of them had been clever enough to check.

The flower extended a thin arm outwards, wrapping it tightly around the arm of the second Doctor, and pulled him towards him.

"Yay, a field trip!" he exclaimed brightly. The flower looked at him intently, its eyes dilating and contracting with suspicion.

"If that was a personal remark at my looks," he hissed in a voice that sounded like someone blowing down a blade of grass, "You'll be lucky to survive five minutes in the Sanatorium."

The Doctor looked quite appalled.

"I would never dream of insulting you," he said earnestly, his voice even. "It was just an expression."

The first Doctor rolled his eyes inwardly; this guy was such a clown. If that was what he was going to turn in to at his next regeneration, perhaps he might just favour death instead.

"And what's the Sanatorium?"

"You'll see soon enough," huffed the plant. "Now come on, I've orders." He then turned back over his spindly shoulder and shouted down the corridor. "C'mon Samuel, the other one shouldn't be too hard to take! Hurry up!"

In came Samuel, the orange man, grumbling and frowning, still waving his gun-key-megaphone device.

"Lieutenant Blaxhaul," he protested darkly as he stepped past the flower and placed an iron-like grip on the first Doctor's forearm.

"Hello," said the Doctor cheerfully, but he was ignored.

"In your dreams, mate," laughed the flower, his laugh like the sound of smashing bottles. "You're no more of a Lieutenant than I am a She-Malactyte. Now come _on_."

The Doctors were pulled and pushed and jerked down the long, thin corridor. Talking was forbidden, and despite the numerous tries at conversation, they were always greeted with a steely glare and a tightened grip on the arm that hurt just a _little_ too much than it should have. Each of them supposed that this was what was meant to happen, and that sooner or later they would be given the answers they wanted.

The corridor reached a fork; one leading left, one leading right, but both on an upward slope. This corridor had been nothing like the dirty cavern and was more like the corridor they had seen in the illusionary room. The floor was made of a grated metal that their footsteps thundered along as they walked. The walls were smooth and plain and held no resemblance to what they had seen before.

"See you later," grunted Samuel to his co-worker, who tipped his head to oblige.

And then, the pair split up. Samuel took the left corridor whilst the flower took the right; and they took the respective Doctors with them, splitting up the unlikely trio for good.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_**A/N:** Loved it? Couldn't stand it? Please, let me know... weird, I know, but all sort of constructive criticsm is welcome. It can only make me better! It would only be a few seconds out of your day, but it would make me happier than... well, I don't know. Something very happy. A Doctor on coffee, perhaps.  
_


	6. Into the Dark

_**A/N**: Yay, more reviews! Thank you for letting me know what you feel about the story; it's nice to know that someone gets to end of a chapter :P Thanks to _**Lady-Mearle**_ particularly - I'm glad you're enjoying it. Just a heads up that this chapter is a little shorter than usual, because it reached the right stopping point. Chapter VII is hopefully on the way soon; enjoy! xx_

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter VI – Into the Dark

She was dreaming. She knew she was. It was too weird _not_ to be a dream. But that didn't stop her, perhaps a little guiltily, from craving that it wasn't.

Rose had fallen. She had fallen faster and harder than she had ever thought was possible in her life. It had come as a shock. The sheer force of the feelings and emotions that had swept her up were astounding; but so, of course, was the darkness.

After a brief but very definite fall, she had suddenly landed in the middle of a park. Well, 'landed' was a little forceful. Arrived would be more accurate, as the next thing she knew, she was lying on her back, staring up at a summer-blue sky with candyfloss clouds floating to and fro. In her hands she was twiddling a daisy, and she was totally relaxed. Every muscle in her body thought this was the happiest place on earth. And it was.

She was lying in the local park in London, about a ten minutes' walk from her home. The air was soft and warm; it was summer. All around her she could hear the happy cries of children running and screaming, enjoying the day. Parents were dotted around, in couples or alone, and somewhere in the distance she could hear the sounds of cars on the road. But none of it could touch Rose. It wasn't a part of her any more. She was the outside, the one trapped behind the glass, and she would never be let back in. Not that she minded. This was nice.

She sat up. Something was buzzing in her ear. She thought it was a bee at first, and this made her muscles clench; she didn't like bees. But then Rose realised that the buzzing seemed to be coming from _within_ her, and no matter how much she shook herself, she could not get the feeling to disappear.

But with her desire to remove the buzzing came a new feeling – a feeling of sudden insufficiency. The longing to want to make that last stretch, to help herself more than anyone else could help her. Before she knew it, she was standing up.

And then, her surroundings began to change. At first they just span and blurred together, the colours merging to form new, exciting shades. But then they began to fade and grow deeper and darker until she was lost in an abyss of blackness again. Only this time, she wasn't falling. This time, rather than falling _through_ the blackness into nothing, she was supported by it. She stood, as if on a stage. There was nothing around her, no sound, no light. She wouldn't have seen a hand pass in front of her face. She could hear her own breathing, rising and falling with fear, but that was as far as it went. Rose's voice was caught in her throat; she couldn't have spoken. Her throat felt parched, as if it had been starved of water for years and years and years. She knew that nobody understood.

And then, suddenly, out of the darkness and the unfamiliarity there came something else. A voice. She could have recognised that voice absolutely anywhere, in any form, shape or place. It was the Doctor. But not just any Doctor. Her Doctor.

"Rose Tyler," it chuckled with wonder, its Northern edge smiling at her name. She looked, turned and turned, kept turning, looking for somewhere for the voice to be coming from. But there was nothing.

"You won't find me by looking there," said his voice again wisely. She looked up, down, everywhere. Still nothing. The Doctor chuckled. "Or there."

"Where...?" Rose began, but found that she could not get the rest of the words out.

"It's a dream, Rose. Your body's telling you that but your mind still doesn't want to believe it. If you want to see me... release your mind."

Confused, but trusting, she closed her eyes (for all the good it did) and relaxed. When she opened them again, there he was, standing with her in the darkness. Leather jacket, dark brown cotton shirt, jeans. And that smile. Always that infectious, ridiculous smile, that spread right across his face almost touching the tip of his dessert-spoon ears.

"Hello," he said softly, smiling. "Thought I'd find you here."

"Where are we?"

Her voice was back.

"To put it simply, your head," he replied, shoving his hands in to his pocket. There was no reason for it. She had just always remembered him doing so. "I'm your subconscious. The one that controls your dreams. It's strange that I'd be here talking to you."

"Why are you the Doctor?"

"Questions, questions, Rose," he laughed, throwing his head up. "You always were inquisitive. Asked the right questions, demanded the right answers. That's what I loved about you."

"You always had the answers though, Doctor," she smiled. "What are we doing here?"

"I dunno," he said. Then he grinned. "Was that one of those 'answers' you were talking about?"

She reached out and punched him playfully on the arm. Nothing and no one surrounded them, and yet they were still always how they used to be. Fascinating.

"I guess you have some 'unresolved issue'. That's what usually happens when the subconscious talks to the brain directly." He looked at her with his crystal blue eyes, and they shined at her with such a wonder that her heart skipped a beat. "Is there something you've been neglecting to tell yourself, Rose? Or me, for that matter."

"Not that I can think of."

"Oh, come on," he grinned. "You can't lie to your own subconscious. There's gotta be a law against it, or something."

"Always so full of yourself, Doctor," she laughed. They caught each other's eye. "What you doing here, anyway?" He opened his mouth, but she cut across him – "Besides from being my 'subconscious', or whatever."

"Oh. Well, then, I guess this is how you wanted your subliminal mind to look in your brain." He looked down at himself, observing the clothes and his own body. Then he looked back up and looked at her, her soft brown eyes, her blonde hair, her ridiculous Union Jack t-shirt. God, how he hated that shirt.

"I'm flattered," he beamed. "That you chose me, I mean. It means I get to talk to you. It's a little one sided, though, cos mostly this is all your mind working me up into some sort of picture that you want me to be."

"I don't think I had much choice," Rose replied, a little confused. "I'm still not sure what's going on Out There."

She had meant out in the real world, where emotions hurt and she had no control over anything. The world that was exciting and fresh and tasted rusty in her mouth.

"Nah," shrugged the Doctor. Then he offered his arm. "Walk?"

"To where?" she asked, laughing. "It's not as if this place is full of paths and walkways."

He shook his head. "You just aren't opening your eyes wide enough," he said, a glint appearing in his eye. "There's a path all around you. Everywhere. You just need to take it."

"Er... What?" Rose asked, looking around again. "I don't see anything, and I'm not exactly standing here with my eyes closed."

He laughed again, and it filled the entire room – at least, Rose guessed it was a room. It could hardly go on forever.

"It doesn't matter," he said softly. His eyes began to shine. "I'm only here to warn you."

"About what?"

"The End is coming, Rose," the Doctor replied severely. "I'm not talking world-ending, here. I mean the problem you have with the results of the Time Vortex."

It seemed that this Doctor was surprisingly blunt.

"What d'you mean, Doctor?"

God she asked that question a lot in his presence.

He sighed. "I mean that when the time comes, you're going to have make a choice. _The_ choice. The one that'll change the future – past – present. Oh, I never could get these tenses right. What I mean to say is, it's down to you."

"What is?"

"About who stays and who goes. I can't explain how or why because that's not allowed."

"I thought this was a dream."

"It is. But it's a warning too. I came here to ask you something."

He reached out and took her hand in his. She felt the warmth of his fingers enclose around hers, and she was comforted. As he squeezed gently, she felt the warmth spread, up her arm, in to her chest and through her heart. From there, it hit her entire body. It was magic.

She looked up to him, her face still and her mouth smiling. Her eyes were pure pools of adoration.

"What do you want to ask, Doctor?" she asked ever so softly. Her voice sent a shiver through him, but he ignored it. Instead, he pulled her close, so that their bodies were inches apart, and looked down in to her eyes. He could have put his arm around her, right there and then, and kissed her with all the passion and love in the world that one kiss would allow. But this wasn't himself, he told himself. This was Rose's manifestation of him. What a sweet girl. So innocent, so moral – she could never understand.

"You can't pick me," he said softly. He watched as a frown crinkled her brow, and continued before she could ask. "When the time comes to choose who goes and who stays... you have to leave me behind. You have to let go, Rose. My being in your world isn't right and it will destroy you, sooner or later, to carry on trying to live something that isn't real. Dreams are good for us, Rose, they keep us reaching towards the stars. But you can't live in them, and you can't hold on to them. Dreams are for dreaming, not living. It's dangerous to try and live the unliveable. You'll end up killing yourself, slowly, from the inside out. And... I can't watch that happen to you. I can't sit back and watch you break your own heart. Not like that."

Rose was speechless. If she had thought he was blunt before, this was like a slap in the face.

"What are you talking about?" she marvelled.

"Do I need to spell it out for you?" he asked, the tips of his mouth turned up in to a smile that reached his eyes.

"I think you might have to, Doctor," she said innocently. He sighed. Oh yes, she had _no_ idea.

"From the Time Vortex. My regeneration. He's the one you should be seeing right now, the one you should be thinking about. I'm just a memory. Or I should have been."

"So this is…?"

"I'm _you_, Rose."

She let her hand drop, and stepped away slightly. She just needed the space between, so she could look at him. She didn't want to leave him, to feel the warmth of his body slip further away; but she didn't have a choice.

"What do you mean you're me?" she asked, her eyes questioning and her face in a frown. "You can't be me."

"Subconscious, Rose," he said, tapping his head with his index finger. "It's all up here."

"But… I'm talking to you."

"Your version of me, yeah. But I'm not 'the Doctor'. I'm you. Well, a part of you and a part of me. As is the one in the real world."

At this, she stopped. This was just too much. Her instincts told her to run, run in to the darkness and be lost by it. But then, she'd never see him again. This was her one chance to put it right; something told her so.

"I'm not real," he continued simply. "I told you this was a dream. I'm part of you, in here. But I'm part of you Out There, too. A consequence from the time vortex. You made me."

"Are you saying that…" Rose caught is eye, "… That there's two of you because… _I_ did it?"

"Yup," he replied, his voice rolling over the letters. He took a step towards her. "When you absorbed the vortex, you absorbed the Heart of the TARDIS. That's my Heart, Rose, or as good as. You absorbed _me_. And then it rubbed off on you and spilled out into physical manifestation for all eyes to see."

She looked at him with large eyes and a frown across her face. She suddenly felt very alone. "So. Does that mean there aren't two Doctors?"

"Got it in one," he replied simply, shrugging.

"But, I see you. You're… there."

"You created me," the Doctor answered softly, looking at her with shining eyes. "It's your mind that made me, as well as the essence of who I used to be. Combined with the vortex… well, let's not get in to the explanation. Didn't you wonder why I always seemed to rush to your side whenever you were hurt?"

"You did that anyway," Rose pointed out.

"Yeah, but more so now. I'm here to protect you and keep you safe. That's the only reason you kept me alive."

"I…" Rose stumbled. She could feel a burning sensation rise up out of her stomach, like the lava from a volcano. It brought tears to her tired eyes. "I don't understand."

"No, I thought you were taking this in a little too easily," he laughed. Then he took a step towards her and ruffled her hair affectionately. "My own little human ape. Cleverer than the lot of them, you are."

She blushed.

"Not really," Rose mumbled. "I just wanted to see the stars."

"And I could show 'em to you," smiled the Doctor. "I know. It was all new and exciting. You didn't care about the danger, you just wanted to help."

"I guess," Rose shrugged. But then she looked at him pointedly. "But what about you, Doctor? Don't you just wanna help?"

He laughed. "You know me. I always want to help!"

They stood in a comfortable silence, the thoughts and memories of what they had been through suddenly filling their minds. But suddenly, the Doctor turned away, and when he spoke, his voice was full of such gravity that Rose had no choice but to listen.

"It's all just a memory, Rose. All this. You need to let it go. Let _me_ go."

She walked over to him and tentatively put a hand on his shoulder. He didn't turn.

"I don't think I can."

He kept his head ahead and didn't turn to look at her, despite the temptation to turn and see her soul though those wonderful eyes.

"I'm gone," he said quietly. "I'm not dead – I've just changed. And you have to deal with it. It's sort of ironic, but you can't live in the past."

The hand on his shoulder tightened.

"I don't want to lose you, Doctor. I can't. You were so…"

She trailed off, without being able to find a word that described him. Funny. Intelligent. Quick, clever, amazing. Fantastic. Everything she had been looking for for the past nineteen years of her life. He couldn't be gone. It just wasn't fair.

Finally, he gave in to temptation and turned around. His eyes were large and his mouth was straight. He looked as though he were about to cry. But he sucked in a breath, closed his eyes for comfort, and opened them again to speak to her.

"I know," he said softly, looking at her intently. "I know, cos so were you. But it's the past. And you're the only one who can fix it."

Rose closed her eyes and sniffed back the stubborn tears that had forced their way to her eyes. The next thing she felt was the Doctor's hand cupping her face, his warm glow resonating through her like a waterfall. She opened her eyes. He was so close; _now_ would be the time to tell him how she had felt. How every day she had fought by his side, winning, losing and always enjoying it. They'd saved the world, over and over again. His endless knowledge, wit and charm had captivated her and every morning when she had woken up, she had prayed that she wasn't dreaming. And it always came true – she always found herself greeted with a warm smile, an affectionate sarcastic remark at her sleeping habits. All because he was fond of her. He had always been able to tell her exactly what she'd needed to hear, and just being _near_ him was enough to make her ecstatically happy.

But it wasn't to last. Now he was gone, and he was asking her to do the one thing that she could never ever do. Kill him.

"I – " she began. She wanted to tell him. She had to.

He slid the thumb of his hand around her face over her lips, stopping her from talking. His blue eyes bore in to hers until she felt like he was stuck in a trance.

"I know," he repeated, his voice barely audible. "I know _exactly_. I felt it too."

Her mouth was dry and Rose wanted to lick her lips – but the Doctor's thumb was still there, and she didn't want to do anything that would scare this safe feeling away. She wanted to be like this always. Even as she stood, she began to taste a familiar yet strange taste in her mouth. She recognised it at once as the taste of the Doctor's kiss, the one she had tasted when he'd saved her from the vortex. It passed within a second; but she remembered and craved it more now than ever. Damn those electric blue eyes of his.

He was searching her eyes with his, perhaps for an answer; an answer that she didn't have.

"This is the last time you'll see me," he said at last, sighing. He moved his hand slowly away from her skin until it was back at his side. She could still feel the ghost of his palm on her cheek. "You know, now, so you won't get too attached. But there's one last thing I have to tell you."

"You're not going," Rose pleaded, and was annoyed to find that she sounded so upset. Her voice was choked as if she were already drowning in tears.

"I have to. But you'll always be able to remember me." He put an index finger to above her heart. "In here."

"I can't do it alone," she murmured, the tears finally winning. They spilled out over her cheeks, and the Doctor flinched inwardly to see that he had caused the pain that was reflected in them. "You can't leave me."

"You're not alone. You still have me. The New me. He'll be okay." A pause. Then, "It'll _all_ be okay. I promise. That's my last promise, from me to you, all right?"

He took her hand in both of his and held it, his eyes never leaving her for a second. She nodded. The Doctor took one of his hands from hers and reached it up to pull absently at stray strands of her hair. He looked at it with wonder.

"You know, I always loved this hair," he commented. She laughed, perhaps a little hollowly, and shook her head. He always said the right thing at the wrong time. But then his eyes wandered back to hers again, and they were locked. "But don't think that you're killing me," he said seriously, and there was commanding in his voice. "I've promised you it'll be alright, but you have to promise me you won't blame yourself. It isn't your fault and you're not killing me. Promise me that."

She sniffed in response, words lost in the abyss around her. There was nothing he could say.

The Doctor smiled, and rested his forehead against hers. He could feel her breath on his face, panting and torn. He closed his eyes to speak – it would be easier that way.

"You could never kill me, Rose Tyler. You gave me life. Taught me how to live when everyone else had abandoned me to my fate. You taught me not to be afraid – "

Another choked cry. He kept his eyes shut firmly.

" – And you taught me how to love. With my heart, my head, my arms, legs… all of it, Rose." His eyes flashed open, and he looked down in to hers. "I loved you. Every strand of hair on your head, ever dash of colour in your eye and every daft thought that whizzed through that head of yours. I loved it all."

"Way to keep a girl from crying, Doctor," Rose laughed as another salty tear trickled down her nose. He blinked his eyes calmly, shook his head with amusement then retracted his body from hers.

"I couldn't have told you," the Doctor reasoned, with a small shrug. "I didn't really want to admit it. I kept lying to myself, pretending that it was all just a warped little idealism of my own little mind."

"I know what you mean," Rose sighed. She looked at him and wished she could reach out and touch him again. But she wasn't sure she was able to. "At first I thought I was imagining it."

"Exactly." There was a pause as the Doctor considered admitting something. Rose was watching him with intent, so he took a breath and plunged. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. If I had… maybe things would be different."

"It's not your fault," Rose replied, shaking her head. "You couldn't have done anything else. You sent me back to London to protect me. You didn't know I would find a way back to you."

"No," the Doctor laughed honestly. "Surprised me with that one. You found the one and only way back, that even _I _didn't know about."

"You can't say you weren't pleased to see me," Rose smiled.

"I was extremely pleased to see you," he countered. "It meant I didn't have to destroy the Earth; either by letting the Daleks take over or by pushing that damned leaver."

"Yeah," Rose mumbled, frowning a little. "What actually happened with that? My memory's a little fuzzy."

"You should ask the Doctor when you see him," he replied wisely. "Now isn't the time."

Oh. Back to that.

But before Rose had the time to complain, she felt a sudden pain rip through her. It started at her chest but rose and throbbed until every single cell in her body seemed to be screaming at her. Her eyes widened, and she stumbled, falling to the floor. The Doctor crouched hurriedly next to her and put a hand on her arm. The pain receded slightly.

"We're running out of time," he said urgently. "I've told you everything you needed to hear, and now you need to save everyone. Be the hero, Rose," he smiled. "My hero."

As she looked at him, she knew the tears in her eyes were not only from the pain.

"What about you?" she managed.

"I'll always be here, a part of you. You'll hear my voice in your head when you need it."

"But I still don't know – "

"You have to end it," the Doctor said. His voice was growing a little impatient. "I'm mortal. Death will come for me, and when it does, you have to let me go. Because it isn't really me. It's just a dream. A memory."

"I can't…" Rose began to sob, the pain building again. She thought she might pass out.

The Doctor grabbed her forearms sternly with his hands and shook her. She looked at him. "You can," he assured, looking at her deeply. "I know you can. I found the will to keep going in you. It kept me alive. Now you have to save yourself. Oh, and one last thing."

The Doctor pulled her to her feet and pulled her in to his arms. He didn't care that he took in the scent of her hair as if it were air – it was what he wanted. Then he let her go.

"I wrote that letter for you. The letter you found in my jacket. I'm glad you found it."

"Doctor," she cried, wanting to hit him and kiss him all at the same time. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He hesitated before answering, his mind a racing debris. But he ploughed on, however stupidly. "I was scared, Rose. Scared that I was being foolish, scared that it would mean the end and that I would lose you. I was scared that… you wouldn't love me back."

She gaped at him, the pain writhing and throbbing like the Loch Ness Monster. She wanted to quell it, but it kept rising with every breath, growing and mutating. She felt as if she were being pulled apart in to every corner of the darkness.

"I do!" Rose said hotly, her vision beginning to blur. "I always did. I love you, Doctor."

She had to close her eyes to try and block the pain. She was surrounded in darkness and it terrified her. But she felt his hand close around hers, his fingers entwining with her own.

"I have always loved you, Rose Tyler. Remember me, remember what I I've told you. But now it's time to go."

"No!" she cried, with her eyes shut. She could feel his hand slipping away from hers. "Doctor!" she shouted. But there was no reply. "Doctor! Doctor!"

Rose shouted his name over and over again until her throat felt like she was screaming against a serrated blade. Soon she lost the grip on his hand completely; but still she shouted for him. She shouted and yelled for her Doctor by her side. But she couldn't feel him. She opened her eyes and saw the darkness around her, her Doctor gone. Again she screamed his name, over and over, never stopping.

She sat up, still screaming. Rose had been lying on a cold, metal bed and now, she knew she was awake. But everything was still dark. The back of her neck was drenched with sweat and her forehead glistened. She shivered. He had gone. Her throat was raw and her eyes stung with tears. She wasn't sure how much of her screaming had been in the dream or how much had been real. Tears forced their way painfully out of her eyes, and though she shut them to keep them back, they stung at her until she had no resistance left to fight.

With the sadness of a thousand broken hearts, she wept for the help of the one man who was never coming back.


	7. Trouble

_**A/N**: I know it seems like I say this at every chapter, and I know it's boring but really - thank you to my lovely reviewers! I love hearing what you have to say, and it really does make a difference :) Now, a little note about this chapter - it may seem a little 'out there', but don't worry. I have a plan and I know exactly what I'm doing ;) So don't worry!_

**Warning**: Chapter Rating has changed to T. It deals with some adult themes that may not be suitable for younger readers. Oh, and there's some minor swearing too. Just thought I'd let you know...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter VII - Trouble

The second Doctor was in trouble. The flower attached to his arm had been giving him beady little looks all the way down this corridor, and right now, he had had just about enough of it.

"There's no need to keep _quite_ that strong a grip on my arm, you know," he said. The flower didn't answer. "It's not like I'm going anywhere," he tried again.

"Got that right," barked the flower, pushing him further down the corridor. "Now shut it."

"Charming. Tell me, are all of your race this amiable?"

He could have sworn he heard the plant actually growl. It was astounding.

The corridor, as narrow as it was, now had wooden doors set in to it. On the front, etched in to white name-tag-like slabs, were numbers. But other than that, there were no other indications as to what might lie behind them. So far, they had taken another right at the last fork and the middle out of a choice at three at the next. It was all very confusing when one was trying to remember the way out, and the Doctor felt vaguely like he was trapped in the labyrinth. But where was the Minotaur? Perhaps he would find out soon enough.

"I'll tell you what," the Doctor said as they rounded a sharp corner that he hadn't even seen. "You tell me what's going on and where we're going, and I'll let you live when we get out of here."

The flower laughed, but other than that, made no reaction. Great, the Doctor thought. This was like talking to a wall. He may as well go outside and talk to a blade of grass for all the good this was doing him. But suddenly, they stopped. They were outside a red door. It was thinner than the others and looked more solid. The Doctor frowned.

The flower reached up to his head with his free hand. He rustled about in the petals for a moment or two and then produced a credit-card device. He slipped this in to a slim slot by the door, which beeped recognition and clicked open.

"Get in," he ordered gruffly, giving the Doctor a shove. This corridor was ridiculously narrow – it couldn't have been more than a metre wide. In he went, closely followed by the flower. This was getting more and more complicated, like a gigantic rabbit warren. There were doors every two metres along, door after door after heavy, metal door. At the speed they were walking, it was almost enough to make you sick.

"Ah," the flower said at last, stopping abruptly. The Doctor practically tripped over him. The flower slipped the card in to a slot and dialled a complicated combination on to the keypad. The thin, metal door slid open sideways. The Doctor looked inquisitively behind it and found... nothing. Three blank, steely, smooth walls. And before he knew it, he was being shoved inside harshly. He turned as quickly as he could – the walls were so close together that it was very difficult to turn abruptly – and saw with dismay that the door was sliding back shut. It hit the wall again with a 'click'. He found himself looking at yet another steely, smooth, blank wall.

Suddenly, before he even had time to think, the voice of the flower came echoing in to the room. It was impossible to tell from where – it just sort of... floated down.

"You will wait there until we find someone suitable enough to collect you. Until then, welcome to the Coalition of Rare and Exceptional Alien Phenomenon, or the CREAP. You will be kitted out with a working schedule soon enough. Enjoy your stay."

The voice laughed and died away. The Doctor felt his breath catch in his throat. CREAP? Sounded more like 'creep' to him. He was trapped in a room that was half a metre square with no way out. His shoulders hit each wall with no effort, and just breathing seemed to take tremendous effort. All the walls were the same. There were no marks, nothing. It was like he was stuck in a shaft. His feet were on solid metal, the same material and feel of the walls. That left only one direction – up.

He gave a casual glance towards the ceiling. About ten metres up he saw something attached to the wall, a little white box. It moved to follow him as his head moved. A camera. Right at the top of the shaft, what must have been at least twenty metres up, was the ceiling. He peered at it. Glass, showing the world outside. Well, at least that was something – he wasn't too far underground.

The Doctor stood with a growing frown on his face. This certainly couldn't be good. He turned again, his shoulders bashing roughly against the solid walls as he did so; but he couldn't even tell which wall had had the door, let alone how to open it and escape. What sort of prison was this? He remembered that the corridor had been filled with masses of these doors – did they all lead to a shaft-like cell? Were there other prisoners? Could he call for help? Would it do him any good?

"No, too many questions," the Doctor scolded himself aloud. At least the sound of his own voice was a comfort. He'd never tell Rose that yes, she was right, he _did_ talk to himself when he was in a tricky situation. If he ever saw her again, that was.

The Doctor sucked his teeth thoughtfully. It was becoming quite a habit. He looked up to the ceiling again. If he could just get up there, maybe he could escape. But what good would being on the planet's surface do? It was the centre of it he wanted to get to.

"Think, you idiot," the Doctor told himself, putting his thumb and middle finger to his temples, shielding his vision with the palm of his hand. "What would Rose do?"

Part of him said that Rose would sit here and wait it out; but another, less rational, part of him – the part that usually ran out weaponless to a battle – told him that Rose would be shouting, kicking and screaming, begging for help at the top of her lungs. Causing a scene. And what had the Doctor done? Stood and thought for a while.

He knocked tentatively on one of the walls with his knuckles, then pressed his ear up against it. There was no sound.

"Hello?" he called casually. No answer. "Hello!"

This was useless, he realised. Even if there _were_ other prisoners, they would be trapped, just like him. He needed another way, one that didn't rely on anybody else.

"Guess that leaves only one way," he contemplated thoughtfully, craning his neck upwards for a last time. Whatever lay up there, it was surely better than being trapped here for all eternity just waiting.

Slowly, the Doctor relaxed his shoulders and brought his hands up, so the palms faced outwards and his arms were bent back against themselves, sandwiched between the upper part of his chest and the wall. He touched at opposite walls with his hands. He could feel that the walls were not so smooth that he couldn't put his wait on them. Maybe he could shinny up.

The Doctor tightened his grip on the wall. Carefully, he hoisted himself into the air, until his feet weren't touching the ground. Success! He kicked his feet out to support his weight, thankful that he had chosen durable rubber-soled shoes. He repositioned his hands, this time stretching them a little above his head. The Doctor found a good grip and heaved. His body rose further into the air as easily as a pendant hanging on a chain. Okay, so he had only gone about two feet up so far – but it was a start. That was two feet closer to escape.

"I really have to stop thinking like that," he muttered as he hauled himself up further still. "In fact, I should just stop thinking all together. Less messy that way."

He continued on silently, carefully, making sure that his hands were in a comfortable place before raising himself up more and being extra careful to make sure that his feet had his entire weight. Once, he almost lost his footing completely._ That_ would have been a nasty fall back down to reality. But he kept on, like a determined soldier, until he was half way up. He came up to eye line with the camera, which stared blankly back at him, its little black lens focusing on him like a solitary eye. He saw his own reflection looking back at him. Not bad, he thought briefly. But then he scolded himself for checking himself out when there were more important things at hand. Still, he looked better than his last incarnation.

Of course, nothing can go well forever. He was a few feet up past the camera when he was suddenly aware of tiny cylindrical holes in the walls, spaced evenly and symmetrically apart. They were no bigger than his little finger – not that he really fancied sticking his finger in to any of them in the first place. The Doctor got a strange tingling sensation travelling down his spine. He was in danger.

Shaking it off as fear, perhaps of heights, he kept on going up. But with every centimetre he was gaining, he was suddenly aware of a horrible crunching sound, like ancient gears and cogs working against each other. He stopped, if only to listen to the sound.

It was then that he was aware of movement. He caught it out of the corner of his eyes, at first, but when he looked it was quite obvious what was happening. Protruding out of the little, round holes were what looked like spearheads. Tiny, sharp and pointed triangles of metal. For now, they had stopped moving. Only their tips were showing through the holes. But there was one in every hole – how many had he seen whilst he was climbing? A hundred? Five hundred? It was impossible to tell. But it dawned on the Doctor that his climbing was somehow connected to the mechanism that made these spearheads get closer and closer to him; and he was only just over half way up the shaft. He tested his theory. The Doctor climbed up half a foot. He watched as the spearheads edged a little further out of their holes towards him. It was too narrow a shaft – much further, and they would be penetrating his skin.

"Ah," the Doctor said with worry. "That might be a problem."

He took in a breath of air, supported his weight on to his two feet and one hand, and put his right arm out to touch the blade of the spearhead. Perhaps they weren't as sharp as they looked.

He retracted his hand with pain. He looked at his index finger, now oozing blood like the Nile River. It dribbled down his hand. Ouch. Apparently, they were sharp: he had barely even touched it.

Never one to be put off by the threat of death, the Doctor found another grip for his hands. It was getting increasingly difficult, as not only was he trying to make sure he wouldn't fall, but now there was the risk of impaling his skin on to hundreds of little, tiny spikes. Still, he managed, and hauled himself up further.

The spikes rolled threateningly out further still. They must have stood out by about an inch. He could already feel a couple of pricks on his legs and arms. Much more, and he would be impaled upon them with no way back. The Doctor suddenly wondered how many prisoners had tried to escape and had ended up corpses in the air. What an unpleasant thought. Now he had a choice: he could continue up, risk being speared through like a chicken and left for God knows how long. Or he could make his way slowly and painfully back down to think of another plan. Neither option seemed favourable.

But then something happened that took that choice away. The shaft echoed with a loud, rumbling noise that sounded like a boulder rolling down a hill. Not being able to tell where it was coming from, the Doctor looked down.

Oh, how he wished he hadn't. He wasn't sure of it at first – but as he watched, he could definitely see the floor of the shaft getting closer and closer to him. Covered with long, sharp spikes that looked ready to kill. It was rising up of its own free will, like a menacing zombie. Not fast, not slow – just steady.

"Perfect," the Doctor muttered, shaking his head. So, either way it seemed, he would turn into Doctor-on-a-stick. He looked up to ceiling in aggravation and swore. "Couldn't have taken any _more_ ideas from Indiana Jones, could they?" he mumbled, indecision in his hearts. It was too late to head back down, so that only left up. With more spikes. Oh joy. This, he realised with some dismay, was turning in to quite a life-threatening adventure.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Samuel's grip on his arm loosened. At last, the first Doctor thought. He was getting somewhere!

"So, come on then," he challenged as they sat in a long, long queue. They'd left the corridor long ago, and it had expanded in to masses and masses of rooms, all connected to each other and leading off to others. Some were dusty and dirty, like the one they had first seen. And some were smooth and clean and advanced, like the illusionary room the TARDIS had let them in to. Oh yes, the TARDIS – the sudden thought of it made the Doctor's stomach muscles clenched. But he kept talking, if only to keep Samuel distracted. "Tell me," he continued. "Tell me what it is about this place that makes you want to submit to slavery here."

"I'm not a slave," grumbled Samuel in protest. He would never admit to it, but as smug as this prisoner was, he was fairly good company. At least he could hold up an interesting conversation and, for once, wasn't scared to death. Yet.

"No, you just do what you're told and don't ask questions. That about sum it up?"

Silence.

"I'll take that as a yes."

They were talking quietly. All sorts of odd-looking alien shapes occupied the bench running up along the side of the long room they were sitting in. All of them, the Doctor noted, were accompanied by an orange man like Samuel. Most others were sitting in silence, receiving glares if they even so much as dared to talk. Fantastic, the Doctor thought – already he was standing out.

The prisoners looked like they had all been randomly bought at a pick-and-mix store. There was one that looked like a cross between a man and a hawk, his beak clicking in annoyance at the forceful hand around his ruffled wing.

"You just keep your head down and stay out of trouble," Samuel said quietly to the Doctor. "We wouldn't want any 'accidents'."

The Doctor suppressed a laugh: this guy couldn't pull off intimidating if he were covered with tattoos, an eye missing and had the planet's most deadly weapon at his disposal.

"Oh, and what if I don't? What if I cause a ruckus and there's no one around to stop me?"

His eyes were daring, but his face was calm.

"I don't believe you'd do that, Doct – er – prisoner #6-7-8-3," sighed Samuel, pretending he hadn't made a mistake at the captive's name. That had never happened before; usually, he didn't even know the name to begin with. But the Doctor had caught on, and smiled.

"Why not? I'm more dangerous than any of the other individuals here, believe me."

One or two shot him a look. Specifically a pink overgrown rat that was speckled with pulsating green spots and something that looked like a puddle with eyes.

"Sorry," the Doctor added quickly, his eyes apologetic. "No offence meant."

"Because," Samuel reasoned. "You're too smart."

Monsters and aliens alike were filling up the benches that ran both sides of the large room. It was a little surreal. But at the end of the room there was a door, bright white, with two guards outside it. They looked slightly reptilian and hadn't moved or talked. They just stood. Rather like the guards outside London's Buckingham Palace, the Doctor noted.

However, this door now opened a crack and a thin, nervous looking woman peered out. She had a thin face and a long nose as well as greasy hair and peering, beady little dark eyes. But at least she was human. She was also the first female the Doctor had seen on this planet.

The woman caught the eye of Samuel, nodded and beckoned. The grip on the Doctor's arm loosened completely, and he was pushed to his feet.

"Go on, then," Samuel laughed pitifully. "It's time for you to see where cheek gets you."

"I suppose you're not coming in with me, then," the Doctor shrugged. His voice was a tad too hopeful for Samuel's liking, and he ignored it. The Doctor didn't hang around. He walked confidently past the rows of monsters who, he noted with some disdain, were all glaring at him. However the order system worked around here, it could do with a decent revamp.

"Prisoner #6-7-3-8? You are to come with me," sniffed the thin, scrawny woman.

"Oh good. And that's 'the Doctor', by the way. I never cared much for numbers."

"I'm sure," she replied coldly, bustling herself. "Come along."

She led him in to another room. But this was furnished properly, like an office. The carpet on the floor was a ghastly shade of puce and the walls were a dirty, dusty lilac. In the corner of the windowless room there was what seemed to be a secretary's desk. It was bare. On the other side, opposite the door the Doctor and his escort had just come through, there was a single, closed door. She led him up to it and then told him to knock. He did so.

"All a bit formal, all this," the Doctor observed as he waited for a reply from behind the door. "Can't you just clap me in irons and leave me to the dogs?"

The secretary looked at him – he was grinning. What an odd fellow. Still, The Room would quickly sort him out. No wonder Samuel had been worried.

"It's just through that door," she said instead.

"What is?"

Her eyes flashed dangerously. "You'll see."

The Doctor shrugged. Bunch of psychos, the lot of them. And it was up to him to end it all. God alone only knew what was going on around here. He wondered what had happened to Rose and the other Doctor. And how much trouble they had got themselves into.

This door had a handle, he noticed. Carefully, he stretched out his hand and turned. It was almost like there was a shift in gravity, the way he stumbled into the room. This was larger than the previous room; but still, the puce carpet and lilac walls. On the far side of the room there stood a huge, brown desk. A large, sweeping leather seat sat at it, but its back was turned towards the door – whoever was sitting in it was looking out of the window, which made up the last of the four walls.

Wait. A window? In the middle of an underground planet? Bizarre. But it was too far away to see anything of any interest out of it. It looked like a sheet of reflective glass.

"Hello," said the Doctor in his casual, bright way. The voice that greeted him was rasping and tired. It sounded familiar, somehow, but it was thickly disguised – as if the speaker were speaking through a pit of gravel.

"We've been expecting you, Doctor," it greeted coarsely.

"Oh, no numbers then?" the Doctor asked, stepping forward into the room. The door slammed shut tight behind him, and he jumped. Something very strange was going on. "Who's this 'we', then?" he asked, turning back. The chair didn't turn.

"You already know," it chuckled.

"Well, if I did, I wouldn't be asking. Who are you? I'm guessing you're the head of the operations going on around here."

"Something like," the voice replied, somewhat wistfully. The Doctor leaned casually to his side to try and see around the chair, but to no avail; he couldn't see past it.

"And I suppose you just expect me to stand here and talk to the back of a chair?" he asked persistently.

"Of course not," the voice laughed, though the leather chair didn't move. "Sit."

Within the second of this command, the Doctor found himself sitting down in a chair, as if someone had just come up behind him and pushed the damned thing forcefully behind his knees. He stumbled backwards into the chair as his knees buckled and felt cushions beneath him. His arms hit solid wooden supports as his head hit the hard, uncomfortable back. Metal bands came up over his wrists and legs and he found himself stuck. The chair seemed to be wedged in to the floor, despite the fact that it had not been there a second before.

The Doctor strained against the restraints, but rather than breaking them, he seemed only to make them tighter against his skin.

He relaxed after a little while, panting with the effort. The voice from the chair ahead of him laughed malevolently, ricocheting around the entire room.

"What do you want?" the Doctor demanded. He could feel his hearts beginning to race, but he sucked in a cool breath of air.

"You are in no place to be making demands, Doctor," the rasping voice sneered. It paused, contemplating things for a while, until it decided to speak again. "Do you know why I brought you here?"

"Couldn't imagine," the Doctor shrugged. "Maybe you thought I would make another addition to your collection of slaves. Or maybe it's just because I'm pretty."

There was silence for a moment or two. And then an outburst of hysterical laughter that sounded like the rumbling of a thunderstorm. It laughed and laughed and even when the creature spoke it was in between choked cries of more laughter.

"Oh, that's rich Doctor. I thank you – it has been a while since I have been able to laugh like that."

"Not surprising if you spend all your time cooped up in here," the Doctor quipped, giving up on trying to break the restrains by force. Perhaps if he could relax and wiggle his wrist out...

"There's no point in trying to get out of that chair. I assure you, it's quite secure."

Bollocks. But it was still worth a try.

"You didn't answer my question," the Doctor said bluntly. The metal around his wrists began to dig in to his skin; it felt as though his blood circulation was being cut off. But he ignored it.

"There was no need. It doesn't matter what I want. All that matters is that you listen to what I have to say."

"All right," the Doctor replied, relaxing. "I'm listening. So talk."

"Patience, Doctor, _patience_," replied the voice mockingly. "All in good time. You'll hear what I have to say soon enough. In the meantime... why not come over to this window? I assure you, the view is quite lovely."

"No thanks," he scoffed. "I would, but I seem to be stuck in a chair. Maybe some other time."

"Oh, you seem to misunderstand me. You don't have a choice."

There came the sound of what could have been the clicking of fingers – though, it sounded more like sellotape being ripped from a parcel – and then, the chair began to slide across the floor. The Doctor couldn't see how, as there was no mechanical device, but the next thing he knew, he was sat beside the leather armchair in sight of the window.

What he saw made his blood churn and his skin crawl. They must have been up a few storeys up, for the window was looking out over a wide, expansive room that stretched hundreds of yards both up and down. The walls all shared the same bland metallic shimmer, like a blank canvas of colourless paper. The room beyond must have been several hundred metres long, and just as wide. From the rafters at the very tiptop of the ceiling there hung thick, metal cords, coiling their way down the room. At about half way down – conveniently at perfect eye line from the mirror – they stopped.

And as the Doctor looked ahead of him, his eyes searching the hundreds of thousands of cords, he felt sick. Hanging from the end of each of the heavy-duty cords was a body. Masses and masses of thousands of different types of alien life forms. Their necks were broken and their heads lolled out unnaturally. There was an eerie stillness that came with the whole room. Everything was silent – except for one thing. It sounded like the steady drip, drip, drip of a leaking tap. The Doctor recognised it, as a similar noise had taken the TARDIS not so long ago. But that _had_ been a tap.

This was much more horrifying. The Doctor's eyes widened as he watched. Trickling slowly from the deep wounds in the necks that the thick, metal wires had caused was the steady drip of blood. It trickled sorrowfully down the lifeless, empty shells of the bodies, like a thin stream. Where the bodies came to an end the air, hung eerily like ghosts, the blood was dripping away, falling silently and obediently to the ground. It collected in a massive vat. A sea of blood raged below the thousands of bodies and it seemed to be flowing. There were open pockets in the walls, letting the blood filter out slowly. It was horrifying.

The Doctor couldn't speak. His throat was closed but his eyes wide. He could only watch, his eyes darting helplessly from one body to the next, looking pointlessly for life in any of the eyes that stared emptily back at him. But all he saw was death.

All around there were aliens. Some of them he'd never seen before. Many of them were familiar – the Doctor recognised them as relations to those in the corridor outside. But most were those he had seen and met before. Those he had come across in the past for whatever reason; they were here. All of them. Every single one, every race, species, mutation... he could name them all. And the most of them, suspended unnaturally by their necks, hung to death, were humans. People from the planet Earth, the planet he had come to call a second home. They were hung.

The Doctor's blue eyes burned with tears of rage. His hands were shaking and he felt as if every bone in his body was screaming at him to look away from the massacre. But he couldn't. He was hypnotised by it.

"What do you think?" whispered the voice maliciously from beside him. "Do you like it?"

The Doctor was panting. The emotions that hit him were overwhelming him, there was no doubt about it; his head felt as if it might explode. His face was contorted and twisted with appalled horror. His mouth hung open in despair.

"What have you done to them?" he managed to choke, barely being able to move his mouth to form the words. The sickness began to rise from his stomach like a tsunami wave.

"Me?" questioned the voice, the tinge of a laugh on its edges. "_Me_? Doctor, you are mistaken if you think that I was the one who slaughtered all these victims."

"Who?" the Doctor demanded, his voice raising with every letter. His blood was boiling. His mind was racing. Every muscle in his body was shaking with anger. "Tell me who did it!" he shouted.

"Always so quick to judge," sneered the voice with a chuckle. "What do you intend to do?"

The Doctor chanced a glance to the chair beside him. The tall, leather back of the chair hooked around, obscuring his vision.

"Who," he ordered again. It was a command, not a question.

"Are you telling me, Doctor, that that tiny, insignificant brain of yours can't figure it out? You don't realise why you recognise every single one of those bodies in there?"

He fought desperately against the restraints.

"This is sick!" he shouted. "Sick and wrong and I'm going to put it right!"

"Oh?"

"Yeah," he shouted. The metal restraint on his right arm began to loosen. "I'm going to find who did this," he spat, fighting still – the bodiless voice seemed to have forgotten about the chair. "I'm going to hunt them and kill them, and then, I'm going to blow this entire planet out of the heavens!" At last, his wrist broke free. He flexed his arm. As if this weakened the entire circuit, his left wrist and ankles were set free. The restraints disappeared. "And you know what?" The Doctor stood up and kicked out at the chair, which buckled and shattered under his newfound strength.

"What's that, Doctor?" hissed the voice, seemingly not even bothered by his escape.

The Doctor cast a last, sad look at the death through the window before him.

"No one's gonna stop me," he said defiantly. "Not you, not Samuel, not your workers. Not anyone. I'm gonna find Rose, find my friend and the three of us are gonna walk out of here alive. We'll save it all."

"But Doctor," the voice said quite calmly, grating against his ears. It made the hairs on the back of the Doctor's neck stand on end. "How can you save this planet when you cannot save yourself?"

"I've had enough of this," the Doctor barked. He turned on his heel and began to walk, staring at where the door used to be. But it was gone. He turned. No doors, nothing. The room was cut off from everywhere.

"But don't you want to see who's behind it all?" the voice asked, in mock horror. "Don't you want to _know_?"

"I don't have a choice, do I?" the Doctor spat. "Enough games. Tell me who you are!"

"See for yourself."

The chair turned, slowly. It pivoted around until it turned to face the Doctor. And the Doctor's blood ran cold.

"No," he cried, stumbling backwards. His eyes widened in fear, in panic and his hearts raced as if he had been running from this his entire life. "No! It's impossible!"

The figure in the chair grinned sardonically. It leaned back and steepled its fingers, never letting that malicious glint leave its bright eyes for a second.

"The Room never lies, Doctor," it laughed, the rasping voice in its voice receding. All of a sudden, the voice became horribly, spine-chillingly familiar. Slower, deeper, but still the same. "This," said the figure, turning the chair and indicating to the massacre outside, "Is the result of your meddling."

"No!"

"Oh, yes!" countered the voice. Slowly at first, but ever so surely, it adopted a soft, Northern taint. "You," the Doctor's voice spoke back at him. "_You_ are responsible for these deaths Doctor. The destruction you bring in your path – it's no surprise that you see _yourself _sitting in this chair!"

The colour drained from the Doctor's face. His brain had kicked in to overdrive but all logical thought had left his mind. He couldn't think, he couldn't feel: he could only see.

"But..." he stammered. Then, he put a hand up to his eyes. "It's a trick," he muttered, looking away and trying to regain some logical thinking. "A trap. There's something going on here." Then he looked up again, and pointed to the dead. "They were innocent!" he shouted. "Innocent! You killed them all! And for what? You didn't do all this just to prove a point!"

"War kills," the voice said simply. "Everywhere you go, Time Lord, everything you do, it affects more than you possibly know. These are the victims of your war, of your everyday battle for survival. So look at them, Doctor; look into their empty, dead eyes and tell me – was it worth it? Was the death of a thousand citizens worth your life?"

"You're lying!" the Doctor yelled, his eyes and voice equally fierce. "I don't hurt people! I save them, and I put a stop to sadistic killers like you."

The creature in the chair – for it _certainly_ wasn't that Doctor – cocked its head.

"Deal with your past, Doctor," it advised. "You are no saviour to the races. For with you comes Death, and there is no worse crime than that. And, before I go, there is... one other thing. Your little girlfriend – you might want to think about your next action carefully, otherwise she'll die. Like the rest of them. She'll be just another corpse."

"What are you talking about?" demanded the Doctor bitterly. He marched over to the desk, his eyes flashing with rage. "What have you done with Rose!"

The voice's owner smiled.

"See for yourself."

Despite everything in his body telling him not to, the Doctor couldn't help but move towards the window. He had happened to give it a chance glance, but now, he was transfixed. He pushed himself up to the glass, his palms against it, his eyes scouring the ceiling. Being lowered down slowly from the ceiling on a platform was another of those orange slaves. And next to him was –

"Rose!"

The Doctor's voice called out in vain; the glass was too thick, she couldn't hear him. Rose stood next to the warden on the platform, her face red and raw with tears. Her hands were tied behind her back and around her neck there was a thick, metal cord. Identical to the hundreds of others in the room.

The Doctor hammered on the glass with his fists.

"Rose!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "Rose! ROSE!"

Why wasn't she fighting? Why was she just standing there with tears streaming down her face?

And suddenly, a new sound came in to the room. It was the sound of a nineteen year old Londoner crying.

"Doctor..." she cried. It was her all right – the Doctor was watching her lips move. Tears were collecting in his eyes and spilling down his cheeks. But he wiped them away.

He pounded on the window again, harder, but she couldn't hear him. She kept talking.

"Doctor, how could you?" asked the bitter voice, floating eerily into the room. "How could you kill all these people?"

"No..." the Doctor found himself replying, his voice soft. "No, I didn't – it's a trick – Rose, I..."

"You left them to die. You forget them. And now you've forgotten me."

"Rose, I could never – "

But his voice was caught in his throat. The Doctor watched in horror as he watched Rose take a tentative step towards the edge of the platform: of her own free will. And he suddenly realised what was going on.

"NO!" he bellowed through the glass. His throat was hoarse, but he kept shouting. "NO, ROSE, DON'T YOU _DARE_ JUMP!"

The Doctor heard her sniff and choke and watched as she looked to the ceiling and closed her eyes. She hovered a foot over the edge of the platform.

"I loved you, Doctor," she cried quietly. "I loved you and you let me go. You never came back for me."

The Doctor rounded on the chair, which was turned away from him.

"What have you done to her!" he screamed, not caring that the tears were burning like rivers of fire as they ran down his cheeks. "She's innocent! What have you told her!"

There was no answer. He grabbed at the leather chair and swung it to look directly over the figure in the chair... but it was empty. He stared in shock, but only for a moment. Rose's voice through the air snapped him back to window.

"Goodbye, Doctor," she called mournfully in to the distance.

"_NO!_" The Doctor shouted, but it was all in vain. He hammered on the glass, again and again, shouting for her, yelling at her to stop, that he was right there, that he could never forget her, that he was right there and that he had always, _always_ loved her. But it made no difference. With one final heart-breaking cry she stepped over the side of the platform.

Her body fell. He watched it fall gracefully, like a diver jumping into a swimming pool. It was if he were watching it happen in slow motion, practically _feeling_ the nanoseconds of her life draining away. And he was helpless. Doomed to stand there and watch her die.

An ear splitting crack filled the room as Rose's body stopped suddenly and hung lifeless in the air. The cord cut in to her skin and a warm trickle of blood began to ooze from the cut.

It took a second or two to register. She couldn't really be gone. She was his. _His_. They'd promised they would always be together. He wasn't really watching her body dangle in midair, swinging with a life that had been snatched from her within the millionth of a second. But the noise of it reverberated around his head. In that same second that Rose's neck had snapped, his hearts had broken and shattered into hundreds of millions of irreparable, irreplaceable shards. And now, he knew: she was gone. And an eerie silence began to descend on the empty room.

And then, there was a new sound. It was a harsh, gut-wrenching, spine-chilling and heart-breaking cry, a mournful scream of despair that rang out to all corners of the universe. It was the sound of the last Time Lord crying for his lost love.


	8. Trapped

_A/N: Oh my, ten reviews for that last chapter! You make my life easy, you know that? Special thanks to **MontyPythonFan**, **bookEnd**, **past&pending** for following and supplying lovely reviews and **anuy** for those kind words. And thank you to the readers for having patience between my updates. I know they're getting further and further apart, but that's only because I'm trying to study for my exams ;) _

_ As a last note, there are references in this chapter to Steve Lyons' Doctor Who Book, written for the BBC, called ' The Stealers of Dreams'. It's a wonderful book, and though I started writing this before I had read it, it certainly came in somewhat useful. So, those references - not my story:D_

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter VIII - Trapped

The Doctor was thinking faster than he had ever thought in his life. _Right, inches and seconds from a nasty, spiky death and all I've got to help me out is this here brain of mine._ His eyes took in his surroundings as his head darted left right, up and down. The platform was inching closer and closer towards him, seemingly unconnected with anything. At least the spikes from the walls wouldn't move until he started climbing.

His feet began to slip on the walls as the Doctor panted to keep his balance. Oh, it was all right if he were just passing momentarily - but to hang suspended in mid air in a narrow, slippery shaft was proving to be getting more and more difficult every second.

_Right,_ he thought again, keeping his hands steady on the walls. _They wouldn't have stuck me here just to kill me because they could have done that anyway. So what's the link? What am I missing? Come on, you idiot, _think

He glanced down. The floor was getting dangerously close, being only a few metres away from the camera now. But it wasn't the closeness he was noticing. The pattern of spikes glaring up at him... there was a gap. As if someone had spread the metallic barbs towards the edge of the platform. It was a big space - big enough to stand in.

"Now, why didn't I see that before?" the Doctor asked aloud. There was no criticism in his voice: there was no _way_ the spikes were in that arrangement beforehand. It just wasn't possible.

There wasn't a second to lose. Choosing a spiky platform over spiky walls, the Doctor held his breath and dropped carefully down onto the smooth, floor. It was a difficult jump, as he had to position himself perfectly. He let his hands loose quickly, avoiding more injuries to his limbs, and landed with a soft 'thud' on the platform.

He straightened up and patted off his coat. He frowned and looked around. There were no spikes. Nothing. He scaled the walls with his eyes and noticed - with more than a little dismay - that there were no spikes on the walls, either. And he was still in exactly the same place as he had been before he started climbing. There was a camera, looking at him mechanically. And hundreds of yards up, there was the glass ceiling. Everything was as if he hadn't have started climbing in the first place.

He turned his head to and fro, not quite being able to believe it. But suddenly, he caught on. The deep frown that had been creasing his forehead with worry suddenly completely disappeared. Instead, a wide, ecstatic smile took its place.

"It's an illusion!" he cried with joyful realisation. He waved his hand where the spikes would have been. "All of it! That age-old trick of the mind!"

As if suddenly realising that he was talking to himself, the Doctor stopped talking. But he didn't - couldn't - stop smiling. He glanced to his finger, the one he had cut on the spearhead. The blood had dried and the pain had gone, but the cut was still there.

"Hrm," he frowned again. But only for a second. He rubbed the tip of the cut with his thumb briefly and felt pain shoot through his finger. But if it was an illusion, how could the cut be real? Illusions couldn't kill. Or maybe they could. Maybe whatever was going on on this planet had manipulated something in his brain, so that the illusions were real for _him_. That his body felt the effects of his mind's trap.

Still, there was time to think about that later. It had been fun to take the time and learn a bit about this planet, but now it was getting a little repetitive and his mind was bored. So, escape. He was in a shaft full of imaginary spikes with no way out, except upwards - which had thus far failed - and a doorway that he couldn't find. Brilliant, he loved a challenge.

The Doctor closed his eyes. If it was all a trick of the mind and if could just find the trigger, then maybe he could manipulate this for his own good. And right now, he wanted the door open. The Doctor relaxed and saw himself in his mind's eyes. He saw the shaft and the camera and the narrow walls. He saw himself grin as part of the fourth wall of the shaft slid open into a corridor.

He opened his eyes as light fell across his vision.

"Well, that was easy," he shrugged with a grin, before stepping out in to the corridor. Just a matter of manipulating his mind and the illusions to his liking. Fantastic.

"What are you doing out of your cell?" barked a harsh, male voice from the Doctor's right. He turned to look down the corridor to where the voice had come from. What seemed to be a giant bat with legs stood a couple of metres away from him. It stood to the full height of the corridor, its brown wings folded carefully behind it, like a strange shield. The width of the wings spread the entire corridor. His claw-like hands were wrapped around the handle of a big, silver gun. It was of a different shape to the guns the Doctor had seen before, looking more like a silver, gleaming kettle on its side than a gun. It was chunky and heavy, and the bat looked ready to fire it.

"My cell?" the Doctor asked, feigning amusement in his voice. He threw in a confused frown just for effect.

"Yeah," the bat grunted shifting its position needlessly. "Your _cell_. Get back in there."

"I'm afraid there must be some mistake. I'm not a prisoner here."

"Nice try," the bat replied, taking a step forwards.

"No, honestly," the Doctor said hastily. He raised his hands in the air. "Look, see? I don't look like a prisoner now, do I? I have my verification here..."

"Don't you move a muscle!" the bat shouted, his voice hoarse and unpleasant. The Doctor had put his hand to his pocket for the psychic paper. The bat stepped towards him menacingly, and, instinctively, the Doctor stepped backwards. The bat's claws flexed on the trigger of the gun threateningly.

"I'm warning you," he growled. "I'll kill you if I have to. Blood or no."

The Doctor sighed, a patronising, exasperated sigh.

"Oh, all right then," he conceded. "I admit. I'm a prisoner trying to escape. An escapee. You got me."

The bat grunted with confusion. Man this guy's stupid, he thought.

"So..." the Doctor said, his hands above his head.

"So what?"

"Aren't you gonna come get me, then? Gotta make sure I go back in the right cell, after all. Wouldn't want to make the mistake of shoving me just anywhere, would you?"

"Right," the bat laughed. He began to walk towards the Doctor, the gun lowering to his side.

_Come on, you stupid ball of fur,_ the Doctor coaxed inwardly, shifting his feet slightly as the bat approached. _Just a little further_.

The bat never even saw it coming. He reached out to take the Doctor by the arm, but was surprised when the nimble Doctor put a hand out, grabbed his wrist and twisted. There wasn't enough time to reach for the gun, barely enough time to think, as he was thrown sideways, crammed in to the open cell. His head knocked against the cold, hard wall and he was startled for a second or two. But it was long enough.

"I'll take that," the Doctor said, snatching the gun away from the bat's claws. He caught a glimpse of a credit card device fastened to a belt around his lower chest. "Oh, and that could come in handy, too," he said brightly as he reached across and picked it up. Then he straightened up, hooked the gun comfortably on his arm, stuck the credit card in the slot, closed the door and laughed. His clever, quick mind was giving him a thousand praises.

"Right then," he said calmly, looking fondly from the gun on his arm to the card in his hand. "Let's see what this new body can do!"

And without so much as a glance back, he set off down the corridor in a jog, his shoes tapping smartly on the floor.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The corridors themselves were surprisingly empty. The Doctor came across one or two wardens, who eyed him suspiciously at first, but soon believed his story: he had just transferred here, was learning the ropes and had gotten a bit lost. The gun and the credit card, combined with the psychic paper pretty much granted him an access to all areas. It was wonderful fun.

He had even made friends with one, a worm-ant creature from before, who had called himself Antsk.

"I didn't know you little fellas could talk," the Doctor had marvelled. Antsk had laughed.

"We are the superior race in this hierarchy. Of course we can talk."

"Oh," the Doctor had replied, a little worriedly - had he blown his cover? "Of course."

"But don't worry, we barely care to talk to any of the lower beings. You weren't to know." Antsk had explained. Then, he had given a little sideways wink and added, "Most of them aren't worth it anyway."

The Doctor had relaxed at this point. He was now walking through endless, endless corridors, with Antsk by his side, explaining what all the different branches at the forks led to and how it was easiest to work one's way around.

"In there's our Mind Control Unit," Antsk explained as he scuttled past an ominous black door. "MCU for short. You'll have learned all about that in training, of course."

"Right," the Doctor nodded. "And I suppose that's how you get the prisoners to act like workers?"

Antsk stopped his scuttling and looked up to the Doctor, a confused expression on his face.

"What are you talking about?" he asked. But his voice held only curiosity, nothing more.

"I don't know," the Doctor grinned honestly. "Sometimes I get so caught up in the thought that I forget what I've been taught!"

"Right," Antsk said thoughtfully, not sounding terribly convinced. But then his mouth relaxed into a smile; though, it was the sort of smile a dog might give - bared teeth, and not that pleasant to look at. Nothing like a smile, really.

"So, what should I call you? You seem pretty enthusiastic for a trainee," he said instead.

"I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor, eh? That's a little cryptic."

"Yes, well, I help many things," he grinned. "Anything that needs looking to, I assure you, I'm there."

Antsk swore there was something almost threatening in the way he had said it; but he let it pass, and put it down to the excitable nature of the young man.

"I think I can find my way around from here," the Doctor said suddenly. He had stopped suddenly at a door. It was the only door he had seen so far which had had a little glass slab in it, something big enough to look through. His body was tense and his eyes surveyed the room with worry.

Antsk looked up to him with curiosity.

"You won't find anything of interest in there," he said slowly. "Only the most troublesome of prisoners get sent in there. You don't need to worry about that."

"Oh, but I do," the Doctor replied quietly, his voice soft but sombre. His face was dark. He looked down to the little ant-worm beside him on the floor. "What goes on in there?" he questioned.

"Nothing much of interest," shrugged the ant-worm. "Come on, I still have to show you the Illusionary Chamber."

"I've already seen it," the Doctor replied darkly, shaking his head. He peered in through the glass again, squinting - it was dark, and he couldn't see much. But then he shrugged, put on a face of happiness and spoke easily. "If you don't mind, I think I can find my way from here. There's just one or two things I want to check up on."

"If you insist," sighed Antsk. "Well, you know where to find me should you need any help."

"Yeah, um, where's that again?"

"The entrance hall," Antsk frowned. "Your training really wasn't all that accurate, was it Doctor?"

"You got me," laughed the Doctor. "I'm still learning."

"Indeed. Well, see you later."

The ant-worm scuttled off contentedly down the corridor. The Doctor watched him go, his grip tightening on the gun. Then, as soon as he made sure the coast was clear, he dug the white card out from his pocket and stuck it in the slot by the door. Whoever or whatever was in there, something told him that that was where he should be headed next.

The keypad device beeped furiously at him, and he frowned. Must have been some sort of error. He looked at the word flashing on the small screen at him. RESTRICTED. He paused for a moment, wondering what in the world English was doing written on a keypad on an alien planet. The TARDIS was all very well for translating languages, but it didn't apply to written things as well. Or it shouldn't. It was something to consider later. For now, he had to wonder about a way into the room.

The keypad spat the card back out, and the Doctor collected it gratefully. Then he glanced at the gun in his hand and looked at the settings. Then he looked at the door. It was better than nothing. He just hoped that his instincts were right when they told him that what lay behind this door was a great asset rather than a great threat.

Carefully, he stood back in the corridor and slunk behind the gun, lining it up to the keypad. His hands were shaking, and as he peered down what he assumed was the barrel, it was difficult to get a target. His fingers tightened on a thick trigger at the button. He was waiting for the right opportunity to pull it. _Give me a reason_, he found himself thinking.

After just a moment or two, the Doctor suddenly laughed. He straightened up and shook his head with amusement. Shrugging, he gave up on the 'subtle' approach, pointed the gun at around the right place on the well and yanked down hard on the trigger.

The keypad melted and incinerated as a ball of molten fire rocketed out of the gun. The keypad beeped in protest, but then it suddenly faded, and the door clicked unlocked.

His cry of joy rang out down the empty corridor. The Doctor repositioned the gun on his arm, put his hand up to the door and pushed it open. It slid forwards and sideways at the same time, opening out in to a dark, cheerless room. The walls were made of dark, dank stone. There was nothing. It was quite large, perhaps six foot by ten. But it was empty. Except for a bed in the right hand corner.

The Doctor stepped in.

"Hello?" he called, being careful to keep the gun ready. Just in case. A figure stirred on the bed and he could see that something was watching him, perhaps a little bleary-eyed. He hoped he hadn't woken it.

"It's all right," he said calmly, his voice soft. He took a tentative step forward. "I won't hurt you. I'm the Doctor; I'm here to help - "

The rest of his speech was caught in his throat, as the next thing he knew, the tired, beaten body of Rose had screamed in joy, jumped up and flung her arms around his neck, practically breaking every bone in his body in the process. He laughed, and wrapped his arms around the quivering, human. He picked her up, swung her around once, and set her on the floor again.

She pulled back, her arms around his neck, linked at her wrists behind his head.

"Took your time, didn't you?" she laughed, staring into his eyes. He grinned at her.

"Wanted to see how you'd cope without me," he replied with a wink. Thank God his instincts had been right - they were obviously more accurate than his previous incarnation.

Rose dropped her hands from his neck as he took her by the waist and looked at her, frowning. Her hair was dishevelled, what little make-up she had on was smudged and she was dressed in restricting, grey overalls.

"_What_," he exclaimed, trying to suppress a laugh, "are you wearing?"

Rose looked down at her attire, then looked up at the Doctor in mock offence. "You don't like it? Picked it out 'specially."

He snorted with laughter, then scooped her into his chest once more.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said into her hair, feeling her squeeze back the mutual hug. "I'm sorry I left you. I'm sorry we even came here. It's all a bit hectic."

"You can say that again," Rose laughed, drawing back. They looked at each other for a moment or two, before Rose sighed and looked at the gun in his hand. "That how you fight your way to me?"

The Doctor glanced at the gun and gave Rose a sly grin.

"Well, you know me," he replied, bringing it up and pretending to fire at imaginary monsters. "Gotta show off a bit, haven't I? No point otherwise. Now, what d'you say about getting out of here? Got any plans in that messed up head of yours?"

"Oi!" she cried, hitting him on the arm. "My plans are better than yours."

"Is that right?" the Doctor asked, a smile in every syllable.

"Yeah, that's right," Rose confirmed with a grin.

But the Doctor suddenly looked very serious. He looked at her face and recognised that she had been crying. "You're all right, aren't you?" he asked, worry plain in his voice. "They didn't hurt you?"

"I'm not sure," Rose shrugged. She remembered waking up from her dream in tears. She remembered feeling absolutely, extremely exhausted when she had tried to stand; all she had been able to do was collapse back on the bed and fall asleep again. How she had managed to get from the dirty corridor and her orange guide's room to here was still a mystery to her. But she felt fine. Considering.

She caught the Doctor's eye.

"Know what I want?" she asked.

"What's that?"

Rose grinned. "A shower."

The Doctor felt a laugh rise up from his stomach and echo out of his mouth. "All right," he agreed. "You help me get us out of here, and I promise you a shower."

"With chips."

"Oh, upping the stakes are we?" he winked. He found Rose's hand with his own and linked their fingers together. "C'mon then," the Doctor laughed. "Best find our friend, hadn't we? Can't exactly leave him in a place like this. Tempting though it is."

A pang of guilt echoed in Rose's heart. The Doctor. _Her_ Doctor. She hadn't forgotten about him, exactly, but the man in front of her was so obviously the Doctor as well... it was just a little much to take in. But what of her dream? Was it real? She had a horrible feeling that it might have been. Probably best to bring it up.

"Doctor," she said suddenly as he pulled her towards the door of the room and out into the corridor.

"What is it?"

"I dreamed something that... explains what's going on. Sort of."

They were standing in the corridor now, and it was then that Rose noticed the hole in the wall where the keypad used to be. She glanced at the gun and realised what the Doctor had done to open the door. She supposed it wouldn't be too much to call this guy a little impulsive.

"What did you dream?" he asked, frowning as he looked at the wires sticking out from the charred and melted metal. "It probably was just a dream... either that or your mind's being messed with, like mine."

"How d'you mean?"

"This place runs on creating illusions," the Doctor said simply, frowning as he pulled at a wire from the wall. He wasn't sure what he was trying to do. Perhaps he should give up. Shrugging with a sigh, he relaxed his shoulders and looked Rose dead in the eye. Time for an explanation, he supposed. "You remember that planet we visited in my last incarnation? The one where people weren't allowed to imagine things, because it would become real. 'Fantasy crazy' they called it - you remember?"

"Yeah," Rose nodded. She remembered all too well. That was when she had seen zombies from a kid's comic book come to life around her. That was when she had imagined the Doctor by her side, talking to her, even though he hadn't been there at all. She remembered the fight with Captain Jack, keeping the entire police force (and then some) away from the Doctor whilst he could give his speech and save the planet. That had been a strange day. "Wasn't that micro organisms, or something?" she continued.

"Very good, Rose," the Doctor grinned. "Nice to know you remember at least _some _of our adventures in that head of yours."

"Yeah, well, what's it have to do with this place?"

"Not much," he admitted. "Except that it's a similar concept, I think. Illusions are created to trap us and keep us prisoner. We don't have control over them, as such, but they're linked to our minds in a way that plays on our fears. Supposedly."

"Oh," Rose replied bitterly. She leaned against heavily against the wall and let out a sigh. "So, does that mean what I dreamed wasn't real?"

"More likely than not, it was just this place playing tricks on you; why, what did you dream?"

Rose's face flushed, and she looked down to the floor. She couldn't look the Doctor in the eye, not after what she had felt in her dream. It had seemed so real - it had made so much _sense_.

"Doesn't matter," she said, almost bitterly, as she shook her head.

The Doctor stepped in front of her, his hands on her upper arms, his eyes searching hers intensely.

"Yes it does," he said softly, his face hard. "All I have is a theory. You have an explanation. It may only have been a dream, but sometimes dreams are more real than reality."

"You have no idea," Rose laughed. In a way, that was what was going on, wasn't it? Her Doctor, being with them. It was all just a dream.

"So," the Doctor said, letting his arms fall away from Rose's shoulders and straightening up. "What was it about? You know I'm not going to let you get away with not telling me."

"It was like… He said that he - the other Doctor - that he was here because of me. Because of what I'd done with the time vortex. That the vortex sort of… leaked… and out came this other Doctor, made from me and made from him, too. That we're connected because of what you - he - did to get the vortex out of me. And now…"

She trailed off, looking to the floor again. The Doctor sniffed in thought.

"Right," the Doctor said thoughtfully, his brain working up again. "So, that's it, then, isn't it? Something inside you knew that when my old incarnation took the vortex from you that that would be it. Bye-bye, no more Ninth Doctor. You couldn't deal with that, so you created another one. You and the TARDIS, that is. Its Heart. Amazing."

Rose looked at this Doctor wide-eyed. He certainly seemed on the ball today.

"I'm not sure I really understand it all, Doctor," she sighed honestly. "It was a dream. How could I have known all that from a dream?"

"Who knows?" the Doctor shrugged in return, leaning on the wall beside her. "Makes sense, though, doesn't it? You cared too much about the old me to let me go. But rather than hold on to a memory, you made a physical manifestation of it instead." He turned his head to look at her; his face was suddenly sincere. "Thank you, Rose."

"What for?"

"For loving me that much," he replied simply. Without giving Rose the time to reply, the Doctor hoisted himself from the wall and grabbed her hand. "Come on, then. Enough with this talking shenanigan; time to save the planet."

She looked at him for a moment, somewhat baffled. Then she shrugged and let herself be pulled along the corridor like a dog on a lead.

"What happens when we meet someone?" she asked as they rounded a corner into another empty corridor.

"Nothing," he shrugged. "If they have a gun, we run. If they don't, well… we run anyway."

"Didn't know you were the type to run away, Doctor," Rose said mischievously, a gleam in her bright eyes. He looked at her as they walked and grinned.

"Who said anything about running _away_? I'll have you know, it hurts when someone runs into you."

"I'll bet," Rose laughed.

They walked on, side by side, in comfortable silence for a while. The Doctor was actually surprised at how empty these corridors were - and also at how the organisation was so poor. How easy had it been for him - and Rose - to break out of their cells to freedom? On a scale of one to ten, this was not rating very high on the challenging scale. It was like some huge logic puzzle that needed solving rather than an alien planet that was being run by… well, he didn't know what by. But something was nagging at his brain, something distant and in the back. He couldn't think of what it was, but he knew that there was something very strange going on.

It wasn't until the third turning of dreary looking corridors that Rose knocked her shoulder lightly against the Doctor to gain his attention.

"You know where we're going, right?"

Stupid question. This was the Doctor; of course he didn't.

"Well, I…" he faltered. She laughed, and the grip on his hand tightened.

"You're so full of it. I bet you don't even know where we are."

The Doctor stopped, as did Rose. He looked down at her incredulously.

"I do too know we are!"

"Yeah?" Rose asked, biting her bottom lip lightly with her teeth.

The Doctor glanced behind Rose at the wall behind her.

"Yeah. Sector 9-3-7-8-2…" he said, squinting. Rose turned to look behind her - sure enough, there was a plaque on the wall with exactly those words written on it.

"Cheat," she muttered.

"Know where we are, though, don't I?" he winked.

Suddenly, interrupting their conversation a door in the side of the corridor slid open mechanically. In the frame there stood another of the orange man - Samuel.

He glanced from Rose to the Doctor with a look of angered shock on his face, as if he couldn't quite believe that they'd managed to escape. As an instinctive reaction, he reached for the communications device attached to his blue trousers - a walkie-talkie.

"Hostile prisoners have escaped," he spoke abruptly into the receiver. "They are armed and dangerous. I need backup, sector 9-3-7-8-2 of the Disciplinary Area."

"Dangerous?" the Doctor demanded, offence clear in his voice. "I haven't done anything!"

Samuel looked at him as if he hadn't spoken. The Doctor noticed that he was shaking slightly.

"C'mon, Doctor," Rose said, tugging on his arm, but keeping his eyes on the man in the doorframe. "Gotta run."

"No, no, no, no…" he said, his eyes darting around quickly. He slid his hand away from Rose's and put it out in front of him, as if Samuel were a wild animal he was trying to calm. "Hang on a minute. This guy knows where our friend is."

"I repeat," Samuel said loudly into his receiver. "Hostile prisoners have escaped. Urgent backup needed."

The Doctor frowned for a minute as what was going on suddenly registered in his mind. He lowered the gun and took a step forward. Samuel flinched. The Doctor leant forward, his face just inches from that of the orange man. He looked down to the radio in his hand, then back up to his eyes. His face softened.

"There's no one there, is there?" he asked quietly, sympathetically.

The emotion on Samuel's face was unreadable. He just stared back at the Doctor with, the Doctor noted, more than a little courage. The Doctor straightened up and sucked in a breath.

"It's all right," he said. "We're not going to hurt you. Or anyone, for that matter. We just want some answers."

"Prisoners don't have the right to ask - "

"Yes, yes, all right," the Doctor almost snapped. "I know, 'prisoners don't have the right to ask questions'. But that's what you are, isn't it? You're just another prisoner. Not allowed to ask questions, just do what you're told so you don't get killed. You don't even know what's going on."

"I..." Samuel began, but he lost the words. How could this man, this intruder, know so much when he had only been here for a matter of hours?

"It's okay," the Doctor continued. He put his hands back, giving the gun to Rose in the meantime. He shot her a look that said, 'just be quiet for now', which she dutifully obeyed. "See?" he continued to Samuel. "I'm unarmed. I just want to talk to you."

Samuel looked from the Doctor to Rose, to the gun in Rose's hand and back to the Doctor again. Making his decision, he shrugged and folded his arms.

"Seeing as you're becoming quite a pain in my backside," he said coldly, "I may aswell answer your questions. If it'll get you to shut up."

"See? There we go!" the Doctor beamed happily. "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"

"That depends," Samuel shrugged. "If I get caught talking to you, it's my ass on the line."

"You're just another part of the system," the Doctor pointed out. "Your 'ass' is always on the line. But, with my help, I can free you from this place."

"What makes you so sure I want to be freed?"

The Doctor cast Samuel a wary frown. "That's what everyone wants. Isn't that why wars are fought? Why people live every day of their lives?"

"Doctor," Rose reminded cautiously. He turned to look at her and recognised the look in her eye - now was not the time.

"Right," he reminded himself, before turning back to Samuel. "My friend Rose here is right. She's good at that." He beamed at her momentarily. "Anyway, I recognise you as the one to take my friend away. Where did you take him?"

"That's classified information," Samuel snapped.

"Ah, of course it is. Well, then, where might I find him?"

Samuel narrowed his eyes. He looked suspiciously at Rose. "I don't have much of a choice about this, do I?" he sighed.

"Not really," the Doctor agreed. He flashed him an award-winning smile. "Glad you're catching on so quickly."

"Come on, then," Samuel muttered, jerking his head behind him. "I'll take you as far as I can. From there, it'll be up to you. I advise you find your friend, whatever's left of him, and - "

"What do you mean 'whatever's left of him'?" Rose interrupted suddenly. She looked at him intensely. "What have you done to the Doctor?"

Samuel raised an eyebrow from Rose to the Doctor in front of him.

"I don't know what's going on, how you got out of your cells or why you seem so intent on 'helping' us," he answered shortly, "But, for reasons that I can't fathom, I want to see you succeed. Call it a hunch, but I think you're on to something."

"That'll be my inter-galactic fame spreading, I'm sure," the Doctor muttered quietly to his companion. Samuel seemed not to hear and continued.

"But there was something about your friend, 'the Doctor'. Something my superiors didn't trust."

The Doctor became suddenly very interested. "Your superiors, right; and who might they be?"

Samuel paused. When he next spoke, there was hurt in his voice. "I don't know," he replied honestly. "I just get sent my orders, and if I do well enough, they let me have enough food and a warm place to sleep."

"And if you don't?" the Doctor persisted.

Samuel hesitated, his eyes wavering. "If I don't, I get locked in one of The Rooms."

"And that's, what, exactly?" Rose asked, her grip still tight on the gun across her chest. "Doesn't sound nice."

"No," Samuel shuddered. "I'm not really sure what it does... all I know is that whenever I'm locked in there I have twenty-four hours to fend for my life."

"Against what?" the Doctor asked sternly. Samuel looked up to him and, for a fleeting moment, it was as if a small boy were asking the Doctor for help.

"I don't know," Samuel stammered. God, the poor guy, the Doctor thought; he couldn't have been more than seventeen, and he was acting as though he had been scared out of his wits. "Shadows from the dark. They follow me and watch me, pounce on me when I stop paying attention. If I let my guard down for just a second, they'll..."

Samuel took in a sharp breath and stopped himself from thinking. He shook his head and didn't continue.

"You poor thing," the Doctor said mournfully, stepping backwards and letting his eyes roam freely over the human. He caught his eye. "I am so sorry that you have to live through that."

"Live through what, Doctor?" Rose inquired from his side. The Doctor turned to her and took the gun back, fastening it to his arm.

"His worst fear," the Doctor shrugged. He looked at Samuel. "That's what this 'Room' does, doesn't it? It reinacts your worst fear. Punishment for the prisoners who don't - or won't - conform. It'll make you go insane if you let it."

Samuel just shrugged. The Doctor stepped towards him carefully, invading his personal space, though not intimidatingly.

"That's where you took our friend, isn't it?" he coaxed. "You could tell he was a trouble maker, so you had direct orders to take him there. Finish him before he could start. That about right?"

Samuel looked to the floor and nodded, like a naughty school boy who had been caught in a prank by the headmaster.

"Right," the Doctor said sternly. He looked back over his shoulder to Rose. "Guess what Rose? We have a new destination."

"The Room?"

"Right you are. Sammy here has been tremendous help. Maybe he'd like to help us out just a little more. Direct the way?"

"I don't think so," he replied shaking hsi head. "I've probably already secured my sentence by telling you too much."

"Fair play," the Doctor shrugged. He sidled over to Rose and took her hand with his, clasping it as though, if he would drop it, it would shatter. "Ready to find him?"

She nodded.

"Right, Samuel. Care to point the way?"

Samuel swallowed down a lump in his throat and stepped aside. He pointed down the corridor he had just walked down.

"Thank you!" the Doctor said happily, before practically skipping down there with the girl at his side. Samuel stood and watched them go. He didn't know what he'd just done. He had no idea who these strange three were, or what they were doing here, or why he hadn't really called for backup. His radio worked perfectly - he just hadn't pushed the button. And why? Because he trusted these three strangers more than the people he had known his entire life.

They disappeared around the corner at the end of the corridor. Samuel stood, shaking his head with a mixture of disbelief and amusement.

"Good luck," he said quietly into an empty corridor. Then, to himself, he thought, _you're going to need it_.


	9. Keep Breathing

_**A/N**: Extra long chapter because... well, it's the penultimate one. And because it just didn't seem to stop anywhere. I, personally, didn't like that last chapter much, so it was a great surprise to actually find some reviews on it xD Thank you, so much you lovely lovely people. This is pretty much the end of the story. The last chapter will be the tie-ups, but... well, you'll see. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did :)_

_--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _

Chapter IX – Keep Breathing

It didn't take them long to find that the corridor opened into rooms. Masses and masses of rooms. They were running, now, the Doctor following purely on instinct. The fun that had started out as making this an adventure had long evaporated. They were jogging, Rose already feeling a sweat begin to burn on her forehead. Damn this Doctor, didn't he ever get tired?

They didn't stop at cries of surprised outrage from other prisoners and workers whom they passed. No hands were fast enough to catch them, and on the one time they were, the Doctor pointed the gun menacingly at the perpetrator until they let Rose go.

Through rooms they went, all seemingly identical, with corridors branching off from them every couple of metres. The pair ran in pretty much a straight line, throwing open door after door to find yet more rooms. This was becoming hopeless. The subtle approach had been abandoned in the first room where, surrounded by fierce looking wardens, the Doctor had aimed the gun at the ceiling, fired, grabbed Rose by the hand, and the two had legged it as fast as they could across the room. They were still running.

At least twice the two had to pause whilst the Doctor dug around in the pockets of his brown coat, searching for his credit card that would open the less easily accessed areas.

"What's the plan, Doctor?" Rose had panted as they were running through the fifth room. The Doctor hadn't answered; and Rose had assumed that this was because of the din around them. But in truth, he had no idea. He didn't know what to do, where he was going, why he was doing it or how they were going to escape. God knew where the TARDIS was. Hell, he couldn't even find this mystical 'Room' with their last companion in it. The Doctor wondered what he must have gone through. A room of fear... he wondered about what _he_ would find frightening. What would break his hearts, his mind and his soul. No, it couldn't bear thinking about. So, he pushed on, relentless and refusing to think of anything apart from the pounding of his feet on the floor and the blood in his ears.

And so it went on. Room after room after surprised room, and still no luck. They were running out of time. They couldn't keep running forever - sooner or later, they would get caught, and the Doctor could already begin to feel that Rose was tiring. Her broken breathing told him that, at the least.

But at last, they seemed to be in luck.

The two had burst into a room, panting with exhaustion, and instantly the Doctor noticed this room was different. A bench stuck out from two of the walls, running all the way up the sides. The room was empty, save for a door at the end with two reptilian-looking soldiers standing beside it. They didn't even react to the intrusion. They just stood still, like statues.

The Doctor pulled Rose into the room and shut the door behind them. This had been one of the rooms that had needed the card to access it, and though it probably wouldn't supply them with that much time, it was better than nothing. Rose had begun to wander over to the lizard guards, standing solitary and still. It was almost as if they weren't even alive.

"Rose," the Doctor warned cautiously, his voice almost a growl. "Be careful. You don't know what's going on around here."

"Bit rich coming from you," she retorted, turning. She stood and looked at him for a second, panting. "You coming, or what?"

The Doctor stood, mouth open, head moving all around the room, as if giving his eyes a break from having to move.

"I think this is it," he said absently to the ceiling. "I can feel something here. Something powerful."

"Well, c'mon then," Rose pestered, marching back to him and taking his wrist. "Point and shoot already."

The Doctor shrugged and walked straight up to the guards in front of the door. They didn't even protest as he went to put his hand on the door handle, though he didn't turn it. He was keeping his eyes on the guards intently.

"What's wrong with them?" Rose asked cautiously form behind him.

"Hypnotised," the Doctor said, his lips thinning. The poor things; what on Earth - if that was appropriate - was going on around here? Nothing made sense or added up. "Can't even tell what's real and what's not anymore. Good for us, but... I don't think I can save them."

He felt a soft hand on the top of his arm, and turned to see Rose looking at him.

"You can't save everyone, Doctor," she said in a voice that was only just more than a whisper. He smiled at her gently as their eyes met.

"No," he admitted quietly. "But it's nice to know it's not impossible."

They looked at each other for a second more. Rose held her breath and took her arm away from the Doctor's shoulder as he turned and tightened his hand on the handle.

"Ready?" he asked.

"As ever," Rose replied.

The Doctor found that he was holding his breath as he turned the handle and pushed open the door.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He wasn't sure how long he'd sat there. He didn't even care. Crying - that was new. Usually, he would just bottle it all up; maybe he'd shed a tear or two if it built up and became too much for his little hearts to endure, but other than that, he remained solitary and cold on the outside as if he were made of metal. Armour. That's what it had been. Protection from the world outside: don't let anything in, don't let anything get to you, and there's no need to worry about the aftermath.

But the problem was, something _had_ got to him. Or, more accurately, someone. A little human ape. That was all. A random string of DNA and protein, strung together to make a nineteen year old being. Okay, so it was a little more complicated than that, but in essence, that was all it was. That was all _she_ was. Yet she had awoken parts of him that he had thought long dead. He thought those parts had died along with Gallifrey and his other Time Lords in the Time War. His only other companions.

When he'd started out, he supposed he would pick some other travellers. He didn't think they would have been form Earth, though. And he didn't think that he would end up falling in love. She was more than just a companion. Jack had been a companion. Adam had been a companion. But Rose was more than that, and she knew it. Had known it. So why the bloody hell had she jumped?

The frightening thought tore through him like a bolt of lightning. He had let her down. He had done something wrong, not fulfilled his promise. He had forgotten her, somehow. He had broken her heart and in return, she had broken his. In that moment when she had given up on their life together, _he_ may as well have been the one who was strapped to the end of that cord. His life was over anyway. He couldn't bear to keep breathing if it meant that every breath was a breath without her to share it with. How could he face the world now? How he could he keep moving, keep breathing; what was there to keep his hearts beating? Nothing.

The only other time he had felt like this was when he was forced with the realisation that Gallifrey would never come back. Once, he had been able to cope with. Realising that he was alone was all right to deal with the one time. Okay, so a little part of him had died with his home planet. But with Rose gone, his Rose, it wasn't just a little part of him that went with her. It was his whole God damn soul. How could she not have known? How could she not have _known_, for crying out loud, how much he felt for her? How every single day, ever single hour, no less, he had to constantly remind himself that he was beneath her. He didn't want to believe that he had found the... what was it the Earthlings called it? The love of his life? Because she was. She really and truly was. She was the reason he woke up in the morning, the reason he couldn't sleep when he wanted to, the reason his hearts had beat that little bit faster when she had taken his hand in hers. When she had trusted him with her life. Her life that was now no more. All because of him.

He'd killed her. How many times was that now? Three? Four? Only, this time, she wasn't coming back. She had gone to the only place that he couldn't follow and bring her back from. No cheesy grin and light-hearted attempt at a 'quick fix' would ever bring her back.

His body was exhausted. His lungs couldn't cope to do anything but breathe, not after the strenuous shouting he had done in his mourning. His eyes stung with raw fire as he sat in the corner of the dreary prison room. He was in the corner, his knees up to his chin, his arms draped tiredly over his knees as his chest rose and fell with every breath. He wasn't quite sure how or when he'd been moved here. He had been so delirious with grief, he supposed that he had been picked up by a couple of the wardens and thrown in here, a hopeless case. He wasn't even trying to escape now. What was the point? Let them have the bloody TARDIS, he didn't deserve it anyway. The last ship of the Time Lords, his legacy. It was theirs if they wanted it. As he'd asked, what was the point? There _was_ no point. He couldn't stand, physically or metaphorically, and face days and days of rescue and triumph when he was so internally broken.

The creature in the chair had been right. He _was_ the bringer of Death. Wherever he went, he always ended up hurting someone or something, and messing in the Laws of Time. Well, not anymore. He was retired. He'd just be a prisoner. If he could stand it. He had put on a big show of what was right and moral, but it had all been an act, hadn't it? He didn't know the answer any more than anybody else. And what if he was wrong? What if what was 'meant to happen' had nothing to do with him? The universe was ever-changing, after all.

The Doctor suddenly thought of Rose's mother, Jackie. She would have to know. He would have to tell her. But what could he say? It wasn't as if he could just pop up in the middle of London and stick a note under her door saying, '_Sorry, I've killed your daughter. She died because she thought I'd abandoned her. Sorry for the inconvenience - I'll find you another one_', was it? Perhaps it was better she never found out. It would hurt less that way.

He groaned as his head slumped forward, a headache pounding through his temples like a herd of stampeding elephants. There were too many questions and thoughts in his mind to make sense of. All he knew was that he was numb. He had cried and cried and shouted and yelled until there was no more will for it. So, for the last hour or two, he had sat, alone and in silence with only his thoughts for company. His lonely little thoughts. God he missed her. He always would. That break in his heart never would heal, would it? It would always be there, a constant reminder that he had failed in his last duty. He had never even told her. He had never said those three little words which could change his life. All because he had convinced himself that he didn't believe it. But he did believe it. He believed it with all his hearts, and now it had come back to kick him when he was down.

It had all been a waste of time, hadn't it? Yes, he'd saved planets with her. Yes, she'd saved planets with him. Yes, he had shown her just a tiny fraction of the world he lived in. And she had loved every minute of it. But now, she was gone. All his fault. He was all alone, again, and nothing could ever bring him back from it.

The Doctor shifted slightly on the floor. It was getting uncomfortable, sitting like this. But he didn't care. All he knew was that at the first opportunity, he would challenge anyone who came near him in the hope that they gave him the death penalty. He'd never wished for death before. He, the Doctor, the Bringer of Death and the Oncoming Storm. He wanted to end it all. And soon, he thought as he leant his head back against the wall and closed his eyes with exhaustion – soon, he would.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What do you think you're _doing_?" the secretary had cried at the sight of the Doctor and his little companion in the doorway.

"It's quite clear what I'm doing," the Doctor had replied, marching forward, bringing up the gun and putting his finger to the trigger all in one elegant movement. The barrel was pointed towards the secretary who had only just stood up from her desk. "I'm invading."

The secretary had frozen. Her hands were on the desk as if she were stuck to it. Her shoulders rose and fell with breathing, but other than that, she was still. Her eyes were on the gun and there was terror in her pupils.

"You'll never get away with this," she had said.

The Doctor had leaned forward menacingly, his eyes narrowing.

"Oh, won't I?"

That had been a few minutes ago. Rose wasn't really sure how they had lost the upper hand since then. Well, actually, perhaps she was. The secretary had started rabbitting on about rules and regulations as the Doctor had stalked forward and attempted to open the door on the other side of the room. It didn't budge. In the meantime, whilst he was distracted for two seconds checking the handle, she had called security and a horrible, deafening alarm had rung out everywhere. It was like one of those fire alarms that Rose remembered from school, only louder and shriller and much more deafening for the brain, as if it had found a way to transmit itself from actually inside her head. Rose had had to slam her hands to her ears as the alarm sounded out right above their heads. The Doctor seemed strangely unaffected.

"That was a mistake," the Doctor growled, pointing the gun back at the secretary, who promptly cowered behind her desk.

"There's no use," she stuttered. "They'll be here any minute. I can't let you go through this door and you can't hurt me."

"Do you really want to be testing that theory right now?" the Doctor challenged, edging the gun closer to the secretary. She flinched. The Doctor felt Rose's hand on his arm and he looked at her. His eyes alone told her what she wanted to know – that he was not going to shoot.

"You've made it this far, but your little act of rebellion has already cost you your lives," the secretary sneered bravely. "This whole room will be filled with security faster than you could run away. You've lost. You'll be taken away and dealt with and then there'll be no need to – "

The secretary didn't even see it coming. One minute she was standing defiantly towards the Doctor with a gleam in her eye and her fists tightened. The next she stumbling backwards before falling into a state of unconsciousness.

"God she was annoying," Rose complained, flicking her hand in pain. She had just punched the secretary full on in the face. She didn't know what made her do it. She had just felt this sudden need to clench her fist and punch outwards.

The Doctor looked at her in surprise. Then his face cracked into a huge smile.

"Rose Tyler, you are one in a million," he said, laughing. "What did you do that for?"

"Shut her up, didn't it?" Rose reasoned. "Besides, I knew you'd be too much of a gentleman to hit a woman. She was asking for it."

The were a fierce knock at the door behind them.

"This is security," a voice bellowed from the other side. "We heard there was an emergency. Please open this door."

The Doctor swore, causing Rose to look at him incredulously. He gave up on trying to fight the door handle open, took a step back, and kicked his leg out. Hard. The door flung open as shards of wood shattered away from it. Rose was shocked.

"Doctor..." she said in amazement.

"No time to marvel now, Rose," he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her through.

They were in another corridor. But this was more like the type of corridor you would find in a castle; dank stones with slimy moss lined the way straight ahead of them as far as they could see. Their feet were pounding on the floor and Rose's hair was bouncing as they ran. Set into the walls, just like all the other corridors they had been through, were doors. Thick, heavy iron doors, with bars across a slab to see through at eye line.

They panted their way past what must have been at least twenty of these doors before Rose spoke.

"What we lookin' for?" she asked as they ran.

"Our friend," came the reply. The Doctor had been glancing into each of the rooms as they ran; though how he had time to see if the first Doctor was in there, Rose didn't know.

"You're sure he's here?"

"I'm not sure of anything anymore," the Doctor muttered under his breath.

They were reaching the end of the straight corridor and followed it as it veered violently to the right. It forked off to the left as well, and how the Doctor knew where he was going was a complete mystery. Rose skidded on the floor, but managed to keep her balance as the Doctor pulled her round and they kept running. There was a crash from somewhere behind them; security had managed to burst through the door. It wouldn't be long until they were on them. On and on they went, the corridors continuously splitting and splitting further until it was impossible to tell where they had come from. Rose only hoped that they had lost the guards in this warren of corridors. Cell after cell they passed, all of them identically bland and empty. And still the pair ran on, deeper and deeper into the maze.

"What _is_ this place?" Rose asked. The Doctor laughed inwardly; she had a knack for asking questions at the wrong time.

"More prisons," he answered, casting a glance back at her. "He must be here somewhere. All these rooms, all of them are empty, except for him. Just think of it as one big – "

He cut himself off and skidded to a halt. Rose careered into him, but he caught her in his arms and swung her in front of him, seemingly by instinct. His face was frowning and his eyes looked as though he wasn't really concentrating on what was going on around them.

The din of the alarm system rang out down the corridor around them as the Doctor thought.

"One big what, Doctor?" Rose asked, looking up into his face.

His features creased into a further, thoughtful frown.

"Puzzle..." he finished quietly.

"What do you mean?" Rose pleaded, her voice with panic. She tugged at his arm and they started to run again.

"Of course!" he shouted, seemingly not talking to anyone. "Oh, why didn't I think of it before? _That's_ what's been bothering me! I knew something wasn't right from the moment we stepped out of the TARDIS."

"What?" she asked over the noise as they ran still harder. She wasn't sure how close security were behind them, but she didn't really want to find out.

"This whole place is one big riddle, Rose," he replied with triumph as he turned to look at her. "One colossal simulation. An immense trap for the mind."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that, if I'm right, we just have to find the answer and we're out of here. Back on the TARDIS and home free – so to speak. It all points to the same thing. We've been trapped in this simulation for, oh, I don't know, since I tried to take you back to London, maybe? I wondered why it was so easy and why the touchdown was so light. How everything's been an illusion and how nothing makes sense. Everyone's story is different." The Doctor grinned at his companion as he pulled her closer to him as he ran. "It's one big riddle, Rose!"

Rose swore if they'd have been anywhere else, he would have punched at the ceiling and cackled with delight. But as it happens, they ran on and on instead, this time, the Doctor not even pausing to check the rooms.

Rose's energy was beginning to wane. Her muscles were beginning to ache and she had a stitch in her side. As if sensing this, the Doctor suddenly stopped, slowing Rose down behind him. She was panting.

"What is it?" she asked, her breath heavy. "And what're we supposed to do about this 'simulation'?"

He looked at her seriously, his face suddenly void of obvious emotion.

"Like all good, clichéd riddles, there's only one way out of this. There must be a control room around here somewhere, not far off. It'll be the computer system for this entire base. Find that, Rose, and we can get home. There should be a button that if we press at the right time should break us free of this prison."

Rose looked at him confused, sucking in cool breaths of air. She could begin to hear voices and pounding footsteps behind them, and fear was rising in her heart.

"Right," she said. "So, how do we find it?"

"One thing at a time," the Doctor replied, shaking his head to and fro. "We have to rescue our friend first."

Rose's face fell; it would be impossible to find him in this maze, especially as people who wanted to recapture them were chasing them. The entire thing was like a cat-and-mouse game.

The Doctor read her expression as if she were an open book.

"Oh, don't be like that," he said sympathetically. "I know you're tired. But really, it's quite easy. I've already found him."

"Yeah?" Rose's eyes were alight with hope.

"Yeah," the Doctor confirmed with a grin. He jerked his head towards the cell they were standing outside of. "He's in here."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The alarm system had been set off. At first, the Doctor wasn't sure if it was just the din inside of his head leaking out or the real thing. But after a few seconds' intense concentration, he realised that someone must have escaped. He groaned as he realised it must be his counterpart. Stupid idiot – didn't he know it was all over? Was he looking for him? For a way to escape? Was he looking for Rose?

Too many questions filled his head as the horribly loud sound began to engulf him. He shut his eyes, if only to try and drown out the pain. That stupid bloody idiot. Why couldn't he just leave well enough alone? It was his fault. If he hadn't've wanted to explore this stupid planet in the first place, none of this would have happened and Rose... Rose would still be alive. He wouldn't have killed her. Again.

The thoughts began to whirr around his head again as the first Doctor sunk into a state of fatigued unconsciousness.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I don't see anyone," Rose said thickly, peering through the slab in the door. "You sure he's in here?"

"He'd better be," shrugged the Doctor. "If we try the wrong room, we'll be sent back to square one. Back in our cells. Bye bye chance of escape, hello long and lonely death. No thank you."

"Says who?" Rose questioned, rounding on him. Her eyes seemed surprisingly challenging.

"Call it a hunch. It's what always happens. I don't really want to be testing it right now."

"Fine," she muttered. "How'd you find him, then?"

"Instinct."

"What? Instinct?" She seemed appalled.

"Hey, don't be so quick to judge," the Doctor replied quickly, defending his. "It's what found you."

Rose looked as though she were about to reply, but then thought better of it. She turned back to the door and peered into the room.

"I'm not sure," she said at last. "Looks empty. Maybe we should try another."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Doctor stirred in his cell as the only source of light in the room was suddenly cut off. He blinked and opened his eyes, but it was so dark, he may as well have kept them shut. For a second, the light came back; it looked as though there was someone moving around outside. He couldn't hear, but he was sure they were coming to take him away. Move him to another cell maybe. He wished they wouldn't and that they would just leave him alone. Couldn't he even die in peace? Starvation would be nice, he thought. Or maybe boredom.

But as he sighed in a long breath and leant back against the wall again, the Doctor knew that the only thing he'd be dying of soon would be a broken a heart.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"We could end up searching through hundreds of cells, Rose," the Doctor reasoned as she shrugged and began to walk away. He didn't move. "As much as I don't want to pick the wrong one, I don't want to spend the rest of my life searching for the right one, either. It's now or never."

But Rose wasn't listening to the Doctor or thinking about the 'what if's. She was remembering her dream. What was it he had told her? Death would come for him... she would have to make a choice... she would have to leave him behind. Perhaps this was what it meant. Yes, she thought as she walked further down the corridor. He was impossible to find and they needed to escape, quickly. He was probably already dead anyway; and there's no point in looking for a dead body when time is running out.

"Rose?"

The Doctor's voice, she heard, was filled with worry. She'd worried him. Never a good idea.

"It's just... it's my dream, yeah?" Rose said, turning to look at him. What a sight – there he was, his coat billowing slightly like a cloak, a gun on his arm and a worried expression on his face. He looked cautiously to the cell beside him, then took a tentative step forward. His soft eyes bore into hers like a pneumatic drill.

"What about it?"

"He said I'd have to make a choice. Said I'd have to let him go and that death would come for him and that when it did... that I couldn't choose him. Maybe this was what he was talking about."

"Rose, I'm going to tell you something and I want you to listen very closely, okay? Listen to my voice and my words, and hear what I'm telling you."

His voice was worried but stern, as if he were talking to a child who was holding a gun to its temples. Rose nodded carefully as he edged towards her.

"This place plays tricks on you. I don't know if it really was a dream, or if any of it was true. But you can't leave him. Stop listening to your head and start listening to what's real in you. To your heart." He stepped further forward. He was now only a few feet from her. "What does your heart tell you, Rose?"

She bit her bottom lip, almost in indecision.

"To keep looking," she admitted.

The Doctor nodded. His voice never wavered as he continued to speak, all the while stepping closer and closer. "Good," he coaxed. "And what else?"

Rose paused as she relaxed and listened – really listened – to what her body, her mind and her heart was telling her. She looked down to the floor and was surprised to find herself blinking away tears. "That the Doctor's in that room over there. And that I can't save him."

The Doctor was at her side in no time, wrapping his arms around her as tears began to leak down her face. It was getting to her, he realised, as he pulled her close and endured the sobs into his shoulder. She had been so strong through all of this: God knows what she had really dreamt. But she was staying his own little solider, strong, just for him. If only he could keep her holding on for these last few minutes. All she had to do was survive; he would do the rest.

"Shhhh," he breathed into her hair. "We're almost at the end, okay? I promise." The Doctor held Rose by the shoulders away from him and looked directly into her eyes. "You hear me? I promise. I'll get you out. All you have to do is keep holding on. And to trust me. Think you can do that?"

"I'm not a child Doctor," Rose laughed as she sniffed. "I'll always trust you."

"Good," he grinned appreciatively, taking her hand and tugging her back to the original cell. "C'mon, then. Let's see what's behind door number one!"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The figures were back outside the door. What, were they hovering? Checking up on him? They had no right to do that – he was a good little prisoner now, no thoughts of escaping or causing any trouble. He couldn't if he'd wanted to; he just didn't have the energy.

The Doctor had a good mind to march up to the door and give them a piece of his mind. He would, too; if only he could stand up. So much effort it would take just to keep himself in the air. It was so much easier just to give up, to sit here for the rest of his life. He groaned as he realised that all he had to look forward to was a life of misery. And he wanted to end it now.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The door wouldn't budge. Rose couldn't see any way that it _could_ budge. There was no handle, no card slot. Nothing. How were they supposed to open it? It wasn't exactly as if they could blast their way open, after all.

"Sonic screwdriver?" Rose suggested eventually.

The Doctor straightened up and shook his head. He had already tried firing the gun but, to his dismay, the gun was out of juice anyway. Typical.

"Nope," he sighed. "Don't have it. It's in my other jacket."

Oh, of course. Rose remembered – the jacket she had searched through to find the screwdriver to help him when he was passed out on the couch. Where she'd found that letter. Hadn't her dream commented on that letter?

She shook herself, reminding herself that there would be time to think about that later.

"I'm not even sure this is the right room," Rose complained. "It seems too difficult to get in to."

"Precisely," the Doctor replied, his eyes sparkling. "That's the point. All the other doors had card slots and keyholes, or ways to open them. This is the only one that's different. Which means, it has to be the right one."

He couldn't have mentioned that before, could he? Oh no, he had to make a show about his 'instincts'.

"Trouble is, I'm not sure if I can open it without any help."

Rose rolled her eyes. This was becoming more and more impossible by the second. And suddenly, a whole new level of 'danger' was added to the field; she heard shouting from not far down the corridor. Security had found them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was just the small matter of getting to his feet. The Doctor didn't even know why he was bothering. But something inside him, some tiny part of his soul that hadn't quite died – a part that was still clinging on for dear life – told him to get up and go to the door. He counted to three in his head, slowly, before he attempted it. He had to use the wall for assistance, but he managed. At last, he was on his own two feet. And he was shaking like hell. Fantastic, he thought as he felt pain shoot all the way down his muscles; he was obviously more tired than he had anticipated. But he staggered over to the door, his eyes blurry with the exhaustion of the tears he had cried. It was then that he knew his mind was playing tricks on him. For the briefest of moments, he swore, he could have seen Rose's face loom in front of his vision, outside the door. But that was impossible. She was dead.

And then, he really did see her. She was there, with that idiot of the other Doctor, standing outside the corridor, trying to find a way into the room. It was her. It really, really was. He hadn't killed her. She was alive. He didn't know how or why he'd been blessed with this gift, but it was her. Her eyes told him that at least. The Doctor felt warmth begin to flow through him again. He took in deep breaths of the air as if he were trying to eat it. He woke himself up from the aching, depressed sleep he must have fallen into. The sparkle in his eye returned. And as the realisation came down on him like a tonne of bricks, the Doctor's hearts – and brain – kicked back into action. Fantastic.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh my God!" Rose shouted at the top of her voice. She couldn't help it. He was there. He was on the other side of the door, looking right back at her. There was no doubt about it. She would recognise those blue eyes of his anywhere. "He's in there!"

"I already told you that," hissed the Doctor by her side, though he wasn't entirely without sympathy. He was just worried that Rose's cry had alerted the guards, which he too had heard. Sure enough, the footsteps and shouting seemed to edge dangerously closer and closer. "Tell him about the screwdriver," the Doctor said at last, looking at the gun with intent. "He must have one. It'll do."

Of course. Rose turned back to the panel and beamed. She shouldn't shout, she knew. As she started mouthing the words 'sonic screwdriver', Rose wondered how good the Doctor was at lip reading.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Very good, as it turned out.

"Rose!" he had bellowed once, happiness and joy spilling out from him in tears, in happy shouts, in wild, crazy thoughts. She couldn't hear him, he knew. But having the chance to say her name and knowing that it was possible for her to reply was enough of a reason in itself. But he'd seen her mouthing the words and knew exactly what she was talking about.

He searched his jacket pockets. The guards who had brought him here obviously weren't very clever; they'd left him with all his belongings.

As quickly as he could, he programmed the screwdriver to the right settings and flicked it on. It buzzed and glowed its eerie yet comforting blue light. And the door clicked open. It was as simple as that.

It was impossible to tell who was trying to open the door faster. Rose from the outside or the Doctor from within. But either way, as soon as the door slid itself open, they buried themselves in each other's arms. Rose knew why she was happy to see the Doctor, to see him alive. But why was he hugging her so tightly? Why was he keeping his head so close to hers? And why was he _crying_? It was baffling.

But all Rose knew was that she was swept into his arms with more force and love than she had ever felt before.

"Rose," she heard him whisper softly in her ear, and that alone sent shivers down her spine. "I can't believe you're here."

She pulled back from him, tears in her already reddened eyes.

"You didn't think I'd leave you here, did you?" she asked, partly laughing, partly feeling a slight pang of guilt at the thought that, yes, she almost _did_ leave him. But he didn't have to know that.

The first Doctor gave her a very knowing look. The grip around her waist tightened.

"Rose Tyler," he said happily, "I am never ever letting you go again. You are the one thing that keeps me going. Losing you would break my heart. And you don't want to go doing a thing like that." He pulled her closer to him again, their faces just inches form each other, and added softly; "I love you too much for that."

She could have kissed him. Right then and there. She could have leant across, closed the gap between them and taken his mouth with her own. God knows she wanted to. How long had she waited for him to say those words? Since they first met, that's when. And when did he choose to say them? When they were on the brink of escaping a prison planet. This Time Lord, she thought with a smile, had the worst timing in the entire universe – and that was saying something.

A sound came from the side of them that sounded like an annoyed Time Lord clearing his throat: which was precisely what it was.

"I hate to break this up," he said cautiously, "But we've got company. Lots."

He jerked his head down to the end of the corridor. About three hundred metres away was a huge gang of bat-like creatures, like the one the second Doctor had tricked into the cell.

"Right," the first Doctor agreed, painfully taking his eyes away from Rose and seeing the group down the corridor. They were stood stationary, as if just as surprised to actually _find_ the little group as they were. The first Doctor looked back to Rose and slipped his fingers in between hers. Oh, how they fit together so perfectly: why couldn't he see it before?

"Ready to run for me?" he asked, his eyes shining. She smiled and nodded – as if he _ever_ needed to ask her that.

The three of them set off at a run down the corridor. Triggering the guards' instincts, the group behind them started to run too. This corridor was long and narrow and straight. And at the end, there was a door.

Their feet echoed down the trail. The siren was still wailing, its incongruous blare invading the minds of everyone around. The door at the end of the corridor was getting closer and closer with each passing second – and so was the group of guards. It was hopeless. There was no way they could reach the door in time. The guards would be on them and take them back to the cells the escapees deserved. And that would be it. Game over.

"That's the door," the second Doctor panted. "That's the control room. That's what'll get us out of here."

The First didn't question it; no doubt he'd missed far too much being cooped up in his cell. He still wasn't sure exactly what was going on, or what had _gone_ on, but he knew he had to run. Run to escape, run to keep Rose safe. Run for his life.

"Doctor," Rose panted. She was speaking to the Second. "We'll never make it."

"Nonsense," he said through gritted teeth. But he chanced a look behind him anyway. No more than twenty metres away, whilst the door lay at best a good one hundred. She was right – they were lost. Then he looked at the gun in his hand. He had noticed earlier that it had a self-destruct setting, which he had begun to program as soon as he'd realised the gun had no more fire. It could be used a dangerous weapon even without ammunition. Clever. But it would detonate instantly, he was sure, like a bomb. Whoever pushed that button would be slaughtered, along with everyone in the explosion's radius. It was a risky option. But it was the only option they had.

"I've got to do it," he said out loud, panting hard.

"Do what?" Rose demanded as they ran on still.

The First Doctor, his mind working as it had never worked before, caught on. His hand slid out of Rose's much to her dismay.

"No," he said definitely. "You can't. You're my future. You have to get Rose out of here, find the TARDIS. You're the one that has to save this planet. I'll handle the rest."

The Second Doctor didn't have to ask if he was sure. There was no time, and even if there was, it would be pointless arguing. His old incarnation always was stubborn. Instead, he chucked the gun over to him as they ran. The first Doctor, amazingly, caught it. After a brief study, he attached it to his arm, much as the Second had done. He was ready.

"What's going on?" Rose shouted, looking from one Doctor to the next. Neither of them could bring themselves to tell her.

They began to pull up to the door, with the guards closing in on them fast. The bats were making horrific screeching noises, perhaps of joy, perhaps of dismay at letting their prisoners escape. Either way, it sent shivers down all of their spines.

"You'll handle it, then?" the second Doctor asked the First.

"Yeah," grinned the first Doctor in reply. "All I'm born to do, really, isn't it. Save the world. Or in this case," he looked to Rose and felt a warmth spread all throughout him. "_My_ world."

They pulled to a stop just outside the door. The bats were gaining on them fast. There wasn't much time.

The second Doctor went to Rose's side and clasped her hand in his. She didn't hold his back. She just stared at the first Doctor in horror. The second Doctor put his hand on the handle of the door and pushed open. The First stood and watched them, grinning.

"You're... you're not coming?" Rose asked, feeling sick to her stomach.

He smiled at her softly, and winked. "Not yet." Then he indicated to the gun. "Someone's got to set this thing off. It'll give you enough time to get out of here. Save yourselves. Live."

Rose's face dropped in horror.

"No," she cried. "No! I've only just got you back!"

He shook his head as the bats began to screech.

"There's no time!" he shouted, his eyes fierce with passion and determination. He locked onto Rose's and for a second, she could see the entire universe looking back at her. "You'll make it," he assured them. "Now go. Shut the door behind you. I won't fire till then."

"Doctor..." Rose choked, not being able to move. The second Doctor pulled her into the room behind him.

"GO!" he shouted furiously. The second Doctor darted around Rose and pushed the door shut. As she stood, watching him, she saw him mouth three words to him. Three tiny, little words. 'I love you'. The door closed shut in front of her as her eyes blurred with tears.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That hadn't been so hard. And, after all, it wasn't really the end. He might see her again. And if not, he would be giving it all up in the knowledge that she was alive.

The Doctor turned in time to see the bats nearly on him, rage burning in their eyes like a fire in the middle of winter. They were shouting and screaming and came at him with claws and teeth. This was what he wanted, he knew. To go out fighting. The other Doctor had set the gun to fire exactly right. All he had to do was pull the trigger and everything would die. It probably included him. But so what? He could live with that.

"Come on, then!" the Doctor shouted hoarsely as the bats came closer. His finger tightened on the trigger. Then, he ran forward to meet them head on. The further away from the door, the better, after all. As he collided with the first of them, the Doctor pulled down hard on the trigger. He felt an intense pain tear through his body. And the rest was lost to the universe.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The second Doctor grabbed Rose by the hand and tugged her along the room. Every wall – save for the one with the door – was filled with huge computer equipment, beeping and blaring, as well as huge monitors everywhere. Cameras to every room on this planet. And right in the middle of the control panel, there sat a big, red, smooth, flat button. It was just sitting there, all on its own. How could this room not be guarded?

Rose wouldn't have moved had he not dragged her along. Her tears stung furiously. She'd lost him. Death had come for him – he was right. She half expected him to come bursting back through the door, that goofy grin on his face. She wanted him to. She couldn't bear to lose him. Not again.

"Rose!" the Doctor beside her shouted. His voice brought her back to reality.

"You!" she yelled, rounding on him. There was so much pain in her voice it very nearly broke his heart; but he kept it together. "You killed him! You just let him do it! Just like that!"

She wrenched herself out of his grip and made back for the door. She could still save him.

"Rose, he's gone!" the Doctor shouted at her. "You can't save him. He's gone. If you go out there, all you'll find is death! Take my hand; I'll get us out of here. You have to trust me!"

"How can I trust you?" she yelled back, turning. "You left him!"

He didn't have time for this. Who knew how much time they had? There could be more guards. It was impossible to think about. He marched over to her, took her wrist by force and marched back to the button. She screamed and cried at him, hitting him to let her go. But he wouldn't. The Doctor, tears in his eyes and in his hearts, raised his free hand above his head and brought it down hard on the bright red button.

And suddenly, the siren noise died away. Suddenly, everything was quiet. Suddenly, their surroundings were different, and the Doctor was standing with his clenched fist on a large circle of the TARDIS controls. It was over.

He dropped Rose's hand and blinked. That was... quick. He almost didn't believe it. He looked around, right, left, up, down... it certainly seemed to be the control room. On instinct, he dashed towards the doors and hauled them open. And his hearts leaped at what he saw.

Rose was still not sure what to think. She noticed the change of scenery, but whether it really registered was difficult to tell. She looked over to the Doctor – the one who had as good as murdered the other's life – and felt fury build up within her. She wanted to hurt him for what he'd done. But he looked back at her with such apology in his face that, just for a second, she felt it waver.

"Rose," he said softly. He extended his arm with his hand out. As if she'd take it now; she'd rather spit on it. "Come over here. You need to see this."

She looked at him with disgust, her head spinning.

"It worked then," she said bitterly. "You got us out of there. And you left him behind. How could you, Doctor? He was one of us."

The Doctor didn't reply or made any motion to say he'd heard. All he did was stand, with his arm out, gazing at her with soft eyes. There was something in the way he was looking, something across his face, that told Rose, just this one more time, to trust him. So she did. She walked over to him, but didn't take his hand. Then she looked outside the TARDIS. And her heart leaped too.

"Oh my God," she said in wonder. She turned back to look at the Doctor. "We never left."

"Nope," the Doctor replied, putting his arm down slowly. He looked to the floor as he sighed and explained. "I told you it was a simulation. None of it was real. We're still on Satellite Five. It must have been one of those old, abandoned games. A circuit kept in the back memory that had been left behind, discarded as a failure. When you destroyed the Daleks with the Time Vortex, it must have awoken the simulation and stuck us in it at the first sign of movement; the sign of me directing the TARDIS back to London, or maybe even before." He looked at Rose and, as their eyes met, she didn't look away. "It was all just an illusion. Another game on this Game Station. Probably one that was long forgotten, too."

"So... it was all just... fake? An illusion in an illusion?"

"Probably," the Doctor shrugged. "No wonder it all seemed a bit too easy."

Rose's face hardened.

"You left him in there. We could have saved him. We could have reached the door – "

"No," he interrupted. "We couldn't have. I didn't do anything. He made that choice himself. He gave his life so you and I could live and get on with things; they way they're supposed to be. Didn't you say yourself that he'd told you you couldn't save him?"

"Yeah, but..." Rose wavered, the emotion washing over her like a wave. The Doctor stepped over to her calmly, his hands reaching out to take hers in his. Somehow, the feel of his skin kept her grounded and she looked at him with pleading. It wasn't his fault, she knew. It wasn't fair.

"Rose," he said softly, his eyes shining with regret and sympathy. "It's entirely likely that he was just an illusion too. Another part of the system, worked out from what your mind wanted."

"But," Rose tried to argue. She blinked back the tears, which were leaking through her eyes again. "But, he felt so real. I felt him, Doctor. He was..."

She trailed off. There were no words she could say.

"I know," he said softly, before pulling her into his chest. She didn't fight back. She let herself be folded into his arms, let his hands caress her back and the back of her head. He laid his head on hers as she finally gave up the fight with herself. She put her arms around him, holding him close to her, as she sobbed into his shirt.

The Doctor closed his eyes as he felt the young woman in front of him spill her soul out to him. She was crying for the old him, for the Doctor in the simulation, for his heroic death. She was crying for all of it. And he held her close, keeping her next to him, never wanting to let her go. He fiddled mindlessly with the soft hair on her head as she let the tears fall, each tear another mark of how much he had hurt her.

And there they stood, the lonely couple. Two travellers. The Doctor and his Rose. Surviving yet another adventure, saving the day, saving each other. Still relying on each other to survive. And the Doctor knew that, right now, as Rose wept for the man who had touched her heart in unexplainable ways, all she needed him to do was keep breathing. So he did. And that was that.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_To be continued..._

_Oh, and I know that Captain Jack was meant to be on Satellite Five too, but I'm just pretending he doesn't exist for the benefit of this story :P _


	10. Epilogue, His Oxygen

_**A/N**: I've enjoyed writing this story more than I ever thought possible. Thank you for making it worth the while, and I can assure you: this is the last chapter :) Keep reading, keep writing and stay healthy._

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Epilogue – His Oxygen

It was much, much later when Rose was sat on her own in her bedroom in the TARDIS. They were still on Satellite Five – the Doctor didn't have the heart to move it. He couldn't disturb Rose, not yet. She was perched, like a lonely statue, on the end of her made bed. The room was still and quiet. Her shoulders were slumped and her eyes stared forward in an empty stare as her hands clutched at a mug of tea nestled in between her knees. She didn't react when there was a knock at her door.

The door opened and the Doctor stared into the room towards his lonely companion. He leant against the doorframe lightly as he watched her. Then, he took a breath, and stepped forward into the room. They hadn't shared a word since he had tried to comfort her when they had first arrived back. She had cried until there were no more tears to cry, at which point, she had made herself a mug of tea and disappeared into the confinements of her bedroom. The Doctor had granted her her privacy and had let her get on with it. So much had happened to her; too much, perhaps. The events were still reeling in even his mind and, besides, he'd needed time to himself to sort it all out.

He had had a good fiddle with the TARDIS controls, properly this time – but he needn't have bothered. It was all just to find work for his hands, to keep his mind occupied, so that he wouldn't really have to think about anything. It seemed to work all right.

The Doctor walked solemnly forward and put the freshly made tea for Rose on her beside table. He then turned and looked down at her. She didn't even recognise his presence. He knelt down, very slowly in front of her, and unclasped her hands from the tea in her lap. It was stone cold. He then put the mug on the floor and took her hands gently in his, folding his warmth around her tiny, little hands for comfort. He stared up at her, but she didn't look at him. She didn't even move.

After a moment or two, he sat down next to her on the bed, keeping her hands in his, letting his thumb run over her delicate skin.

"I thought you might like some more tea," he said eventually after watching her for a while. Rose blinked slowly and, at last, turned her head to look at him. Her brown eyes were such an abyss of swirling pain that it was all the Doctor could to control himself from trying to comfort her in ways that would do neither of them any good. He missed his Rose. She hadn't really been the same since he had changed. Everything seemed to be an act, a barrier, and if things were to go back to the way they used to be – or at the very least, go anywhere at all – he had to get to the bottom of it.

"Thanks," she croaked. He felt her hands shake within his.

"You'll have to face the world sooner or later," he said gently, not taking his eyes off her for a minute. Rose's head turned back to gaze emptily ahead of her.

"I know."

The Doctor squeezed her hands gently.

"But you won't be alone. I'm still here."

She was grateful. She really was. But right now, all she wanted was to see the Ninth Doctor in front of her, laughing, smiling, coming up with another stupid plan to get them killed, or something to that effect. She hadn't been able to accept that what she had seen earlier was just the product of some sick game on Satellite Five. He was too real for that. Not even machines could generate what she had felt for him, and what she knew he had felt for her. It just wasn't possible. So why did she have this nagging, horrible doubt?

"He loved me," Rose said quietly after a while. "He loved me and I let him die. I killed him."

"No," the Doctor replied softly but sternly. "You could never kill anyone. Least of all him. And he still loves you, you know."

At this, she looked at the Doctor with that sort of slow solemnity that accompanies all grievers when they hear something they don't understand.

"How can he?" she almost laughed reproachfully. The Doctor took in a breath and looked down to their hands. Then, he pulled one of her hand to his chest and let it rest on where his hearts were. She felt life beating there, a rhythmic ba-bum ba-bum.

"Because I do," the Doctor replied quietly, looking into her eyes once more. He wasn't sure what he saw looking back at him. But at that point, he didn't care. She didn't seem to be able to say anything, so he continued. "I was there with you through all of it. I may look different now, and think differently, but I still went through everything with you. Every word I said when I meant it, I still mean it now." The Doctor paused and took a small sigh, looking away as he next spoke. "You gave up the world for me, Rose, without even a question. You left it all behind because you trusted me. And I... it breaks my heart to see you suffering because of it."

And then, the Doctor did something that he would never have even thought possible. He didn't want to even suggest it, for fear she might say yes. He didn't want that risk. But it wasn't what he wanted that was important – it was Rose. He looked at her carefully, questioningly, whilst she looked back at him, her face void of fear or suspense.

"The TARDIS has a device," he explained slowly, "That can erase memories. If you want... if this is too much... I can use it and take you back to London. You won't remember a thing, except for everything you already knew on earth. No TARDIS, no aliens, no pain. I can get rid of it all if you want. No catches."

He was surprised to hear Rose reply so quickly. That couldn't be good. His stomach did somersaults as his hearts fell.

"Except, there's one very big catch, Doctor," she sniffed, edging closer to him slightly.

He frowned. "What's that?"

"I won't remember you."

"That was... sort of the point," he replied with a wry smile. But Rose was shaking her head, her eyes intense. Their shoulders and knees were touching as she slid her arms up and around his neck, curling him into a hug. He didn't stop her.

Very quietly in his ear, through his mass of messy hair, she whispered, "You're worth the pain, Doctor. I'm not going anywhere."

He closed his eyes in ecstasy as he wrapped his arms around her, keeping her close, burying his face in her neck. It was dangerous how happy those words had made him. It was dangerous how the flutter of her fingers down his spine made his breath catch in his throat and his hearts race. It was dangerous that he positioned his head to hers and let their mouths pass over each other, gracefully and elegantly at first, like two young, fresh lovers. And it was far too dangerous – and also far too late, when he realised – when suddenly he found himself cupping Rose's face in his hand and kiss her gently and serenely on the mouth and feel her kiss him back.

The Doctor's free hand found its way to the small of Rose's back and exerted an expert amount of pressure – enough to make her curl into and towards him, turning their kiss into devastating passion. He felt her hands run through his hair and dance over his back, making him shudder. His tongue began to graze the tip of her mouth affectionately before he finally realised what it was he was actually doing, and pulled away. Rose's grip tightened around his shoulders and she looked up questioningly into his face. He looked down at her sombrely, his face serious. She didn't have to ask her question; he could see it on her face.

Carefully, the Doctor let his hands fall away from Rose and onto the bed beside him. His hearts were still rocketing with excitement and fear about what he had just done. He couldn't explain it.

Instead, his eyes bore into hers and, when he spoke, it was with so much serious that Rose couldn't ignore it.

"I can't," he said defiantly. The grip on his neck loosened, if only slightly.

Rose didn't understand. Of course she didn't, he knew that. To her, it was just a rush of feelings and coping with those feelings and that was that. She couldn't understand what a leap like that it would mean for him. Had already meant for him. He may already have gone too far.

"Why?" she questioned softly, her voice wavering with emotion. Despite himself, the Doctor reached for hips in his hands: it was only to hold her away from him, he told herself.

"It's not right," he replied, his brown eyes determined.

"Feels right," Rose reasoned gently, and the Doctor had to try very hard to control himself as her fingers began to play with the hair at the back of his neck.

"It's too dangerous," he murmured, feeling her lean into him. "It's too soon. Too stupid. Too everything." His face hardened. "I'm not the one for you."

"Says who?" Rose asked, and there was a hint of incredulity in her voice. "You can't say you don't want to, Doctor." There was almost daring in her voice.

The Doctor sighed, a little exasperatedly.

"Of course I want to," he admitted, with some embarrassment. "You know that already. I've wanted to since pretty much the first day I met you. But it doesn't change anything. I'm the Doctor, and I can't go – "

"Doctor this, and Doctor that," Rose replied sternly, mockingly, not taking her arms away from his back. She shook her head a little as she spoke. "Forget the cryptic name for a minute and listen to what you want."

"I want you to be safe. I want you to be happy."

"This makes me happy," Rose assured, pushing her body up closer to his. He took in a breath, but didn't move.

"So why, exactly, have you been shut up in here for the past few hours then?"

At this, Rose dropped her hands away from the Doctor as if he'd just stung her. Which, in a way, he had.

"That's not fair," she said bitterly.

"No," he agreed. "It's not. But, I'm not a very fair person. What you're going through... giving into temptation is not going to deal with it. In fact, it'll just make things worse."

Rose stood up off the bed, away from his reach. She folded her arms and faced the wall, away from him, before turning back with anger in her eyes.

"You're so busy analysing, Doctor, that you miss the things that are really important. You know that?"

"Yes," the Doctor replied, anger getting the better of him. He stood up, not caring that he knocked over the cold mug of tea as he went. "Yes, I do know that. But that's who I am. If saving the universe and making sure I don't make mistakes make me miss out on one or two things, then so be it. It's a small price to pay."

Rose flung her hands to her sides in annoyance. The Doctor was so frustrating! Couldn't he see that while he was cooped up in his own little world, he was letting the _real_ world pass him by?

"You can't not make mistakes Doctor," Rose cried. "That's life. But is that all I am to you? A mistake?" The last word was almost spat with disgust.

The Doctor flinched. Of course Rose wasn't a mistake. She was anything – everything – but. It was precisely how _un_-mistake-like she was that made the entire situation far too unthinkable. He didn't deserve her, not in a million years, and he couldn't let her think that he was worth it. He wasn't, and he knew it. It was not Rose that was the mistake. It was him.

"You _know_ I don't think that," the Doctor replied sternly.

"Do I?"

"I should hope so!" Oh, if only she knew just how much he had used to love her: she could never accuse him of thinking she were the mistake then. "I don't go gallivanting off around the universe with just anyone, you know. It takes someone special and strong enough who can deal with it. And you can, Rose Tyler; I've seen it in everything you do. And right now, it's late, and you need to get some sleep."

Rose folded her arms. The Doctor could see that she wouldn't be going to sleep any time soon. But he had to leave. He needed time to think about the idiotic thing he had done, the door he had opened that could never be closed. He began making his way around the bed towards the door. Nothing could stop him leaving.

"You know what your problem is, _Doctor_? You're scared."

Oh. Except that.

He whirled around with fury in his eyes, fury that he knew wasn't meant for her. It was meant for all the despicable, disgusting creatures of the universe, the ones who would murder thousands for their own personal gain, not caring who got in their way. It was meant for people like Van Statten, like the Slitheen, like the Daleks. But not for Rose.

Unfortunately, she was all there was.

"And I suppose you'd know all about fear, wouldn't you Rose? You've spent all of, what, four months maybe, cooped up with me in the TARDIS and you think you know everything about me. You think you know what makes me 'tick' and how to program me just to your liking. You think you know how I like my tea, what my favourite star is, my past, my future. You think you're the one who gets to share that with me. But you're not. And you never will be."

Oh crap – what the bloody hell had he just said all that for? It wasn't Rose's fault. None of it was. She'd just opened up a sore wound, and everything had come spilling out to hit the nearest target. He didn't mean any of it, not one single word. If there was anyone, _anyone_, on all the planets he could name, the only one he would want to share it with would be Rose. He wanted to show her so much about himself. He wanted her to be the one to share it with, so that he wouldn't be cold and alone.

"I'm sorry," he said almost immediately, darting over to her but not daring to attempt to hug her. "I didn't mean that. I didn't mean any of it."

"S'alright," she sniffed, though she was quite clearly hurt. He hoped it was fixable. Oh, God, how he hoped.

"No," he said, self-loathing clear in his voice. "It's not. You didn't deserve any of that. It wasn't meant for you."

"Even if it was," she replied, staring gently up into his face. "It wouldn't matter anyway. Because you're wrong, Doctor. You've shown me the world through your eyes and I love it too much to let it go. I don't think I know you at all. And that scares me. I _want_ to know, Doctor. I really, really do. Even if you say I can't."

Marry her! his body screamed at him. He was only half joking. Amazing. He'd just said about the most hurtful thing he could have come up with, and still she was standing here in front of him offering all that she could towards him. He had been right before; he didn't deserve her.

"Rose," the Doctor said softly, fighting his fear and reaching down to take her hands in his. He would have pulled her into a hug, but he wanted to watch her face as he spoke. "My Rose. Rose Tyler. You are far too good for me and this TARDIS of mine. I don't know what you want or what you deserve. I know I'm probably not it. But," he added hastily as he saw her face fall as if she were about to protest. He pulled her close, his mouth just inches from hers. "I'd rather like to try."

She smiled as their foreheads knocked together affectionately.

"I'd like that, Doctor," she replied quietly, her eyes closed.

He grinned, before working his hand behind her back and bringing his mouth to hers as if she were his oxygen. Their arms wrapped around each other as they unfurled themselves to each other together. And this time, he did not stop himself. This time, he let his hearts take over and told his head to go and mind its own business.

They collapsed onto the bed together, Rose in quite a nervous fit of giggles. The Doctor had to let her calm down a little, and they lay for a while, the Doctor watching Rose while she laughed. His hand was grazing her waist affectionately as his eyes darted from her wild hair to her perfect face. She looked up to him eventually, her body edging closer towards his; she liked his warmth.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" he asked softly and meaningfully.

Rose hooked her legs so that they intertwined with his and let herself be brought closer to the man she loved. She reached up and kissed his neck tenderly before replying; "Shut up, you silly sod."

After that, he obeyed her, and they performed together like a harmonic ritual, each finally giving into their own desires, their own passions and even their own fears.

For the first time in what was probably a very long time, the Doctor had learned to feel. And Rose Tyler, nineteen-year-old earth-child – with no A-levels and a dead-end job – had been the one to teach him.

_**End **_


End file.
